Gene Therapy Company Bamboo Therapeutics Raises $49.5 Million in Apparent Series A Financing Round

Gene Therapy Company Bamboo Therapeutics Raises $49.5 Million in Apparent Series A Financing
February 12, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff

Chapel Hill, NC-based Bamboo Therapeutics received $49.5 million in what appears to be a Series A equity financing round.

Bamboo was founded based on the work of Richard Jude Samulski, the director of the Gene Therapy Center at the University of North Carolina. Samulski was the first researcher to use the adeno-associated virus (AAV) as a gene therapy vector. Since then, he has re-engineered the virus to, according to the company website, “target delivery to certain tissues, de-target other tissues, and improve its safety.”

There are currently more than 20 patents issued over the use of AAV for therapeutic purposes.

Apparently there were six investors that participated in this financing round, although they are currently unidentified. Piper Jaffray & Co. handled the round.

On Jan. 10, 2016, Bamboo announced that CureDuchenne Ventures LLC invested an undisclosed amount of money in the company. The company’s gene therapy, which was initially dubbed BMB-D001, has shown some positive effects in animal models with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD).

DMD is a fatal genetic disease that affects about 1 in 3,500 boys. It is a muscle-wasting disease that is typically diagnosed around age five. The patients usually lose the ability to walk by age 12 and most die in their mid-20s. There are currently no approved treatments or cure.

Most recently, two other companies working on DMD drugs ran into major stumbling blocks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA did not approve San Rafael, Calif.-based BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. ’s application for Kyndrisa (drisapersen) for DMD. It is still under review in the European Union. At about the same time, in January, the FDA turned down Cambridge, Mass.-based Sarepta Therapeutics ’ eteplirsen for DMD.

On Jan. 8, Bamboo also announced it had bought a viral gene therapy manufacturing plant from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Financial details were not disclosed. The facility, Vector Core, was founded in 1993, has 11,000 square feet.

“We believe that having a leading manufacturing facility fully integrated into our business provides flexibility and a competitive advantage,” said Samulski, scientific founder and chairman of Bamboo, in a statement. “We anticipate rapidly moving our programs forward, including our DMD program, which is expected to enter the clinic in early 2017.”

In the process, Bamboo also hired Vector Core’s 20 employees, as well as its director, Josh Grieger, who is a Bamboo co-founder. Grieger joined Bamboo as vice president of manufacturing and process development.

Bamboo is also working on using its gene therapy platform to develop treatments for Giant axonal neuropathy (GAN), Canavan disease, and Friedreich’s ataxia. The GAN program is currently in Phase I/II clinical trials.

The company was founded by Samulski and Sheila Mikhail. It is a spinout of Asklepios Biopharmaceutical, which was founded by the two in 2003 along with UNC Professor Xiao Xiao, who is also a co-founder of Bamboo. Additional scientific founders include Paola Leone and Aravind Asokan.

“These are exciting times for gene therapy,” Mikhail told WRAL TechWire in January. “We are building Bamboo to be a fully integrated gene therapy company that can deliver potentially life-changing treatments to patients.”

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