Takeda-backed Ambys Medicines has added $47 million to its series A to tackle liver diseases via cell therapies.
In case you need a refresher on the Bay Area biotech, the company emerged with a $60 million series A in August 2018. Now, the biotech says it will get into the clinic in 2023 thanks to that fund being topped up to $107 million total.
The fresh funds will go toward getting Ambys' liver cell therapy through studies and into human trials. The treatment, dubbed AMI-918, will be studied in acute liver disease first, the biotech said Tuesday. If the treatment is found to be effective in that population, it could impact 100,000 patients in the U.S. who experience liver function issues, Ambys said.
The three-year-old biotech's second liver-cell program will aim to extend the durability of replacement cells and enable easier dosing and delivery without needing immunosuppressive therapy. This would tap into another patient population of nearly 500,000 U.S. patients with chronic liver disease, the company said.
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Ambys opened a production facility this year to produce the cells it needs at scale, an effort Chief Scientific Officer Markus Grompe, M.D., characterized as a "moonshot" when the company was born.
The biotech is attempting to treat a disease that has serious ramifications, as liver function decline leads to the inability to metabolize food and drugs, process fats and retain energy.
Takeda participated in the funding round, which was led by Third Rock Ventures and included backing from Schroders Capital, Laurion Capital, Smilegate Investment and Alexandria Venture Investments.
The funding comes after the addition of three executives this year.
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Ronald Park, M.D., joined as CEO in the summer from Ancestry, where he was EVP and general manager of health and DNA after a 17-year career at Roche and its Genentech unit. Grompe, an Ambys founder, was named CSO earlier this month after Michael Holmes, Ph.D., stepped down. Chief Technology Officer Alan Smith, Ph.D., got the leadership shuffle moving in April when he joined from Akouos, a precision genetic medicine startup.