Matchpoint Therapeutics has aced its series B round, serving up $150 million to advance the Sanofi-backed biotech’s pipeline of precision covalent medicines.
The latest financing was co-led by Nextech Invest and Norwest, with returning backers Sanofi Ventures and Digitalis Ventures joined by new investors Invus, BB Biotech, T1D Fund and BOLD Longevity Growth. Founding investors Access Biotechnology and Atlas Venture.
It follows a $70 million series A back in 2022, where Sanofi Ventures took the lead. Since then, Matchpoint netted $60 million in upfront cash from Novartis in return for the option for the Big Pharma to develop oral covalent inhibitors directed at an unnamed transcription factor tied to several inflammatory diseases.
Matchpoint said the top spending priority for the series B funds would be taking its lead asset MPT-062 into the clinic next year. MPT-062 is an oral T cell modulator that the biotech has been pitching as a first-in-class option to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Some money will also be set aside to advance Matchpoint’s “broader product pipeline”—although details remain under wraps for now.
“This series B financing reflects our substantial progress in the discovery of differentiated first-in-class oral therapies for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases,” Matchpoint CEO Andre Turenne said in the Oct. 7 release.
“We are deeply grateful to our new and existing investors for their support as we advance MPT-062 into clinical development and progress our other innovative programs,” Turenne added.
Kanishka Pothula, Ph.D., a managing partner at Nextech who is joining Matchpoint’s board as part of the investment, suggested that MPT-062 could “fundamentally change the management of many common immune-mediated inflammatory conditions with an oral medicine.”
“Its first-in-class mechanism has the potential to precisely address the disease-causing overactivation of T cells,” Pothula added.
The Watertown, Massachusetts-based biotech launched in 2022 with its Advanced Covalent Exploration (ACE) platform, designed to blend together machine learning with a library of covalent compounds, as well as chemoproteomics that can identify covalent binders. The idea is that covalent bonds can produce a more durable attachment to a target, increasing potency and limiting systemic exposure.
Brian Matesic, M.D., a principal at Norwest who is also joining the biotech’s board, said that Matchpoint’s platform “has made unprecedented advances against historically hard-to-drug targets.”
“We’re excited to support the company as it progresses its pipeline into the clinic and advances the development of truly differentiated medicines for patients with autoimmune diseases,” Matesic added.
Covalent molecules are a hot area of R&D. Last year Vertex Pharmaceuticals penned a $2 billion biobucks pact with Enlaza Therapeutics—which touts itself as the “first covalent biologics platform company”—for a multitarget drug discovery deal aiming to create new T-cell engagers and small-format drug conjugates. Back in 2023, Boehringer Ingelheim tasked Covant Therapeutics with discovering covalent candidates against an emerging cancer target.
Earlier this week, Flagship Pioneering-founded Expedition Medicines was named one Fierce Biotech’s Fierce 15 of 2026 for its work using covalent chemistry and AI to explore a fresh path for drug discovery.
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