Novo Holdings invests in three more AMR biotechs

Novo Holdings’ REPAIR Impact Fund, which helps fund companies tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR), has announced three new investments. The first beneficiary is AstraZeneca spin-off Entasis Therapeutics, whose programmes include a new class of non-β-lactam PBP inhibitors (NBP) targeting multi-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. The REPAIR Fund participated in the $75 million NASDAQ listing in September 2018 by investing $10 million. A report published last year named Entasis as the most active biotech in AMR R&D.
Novo Holdings also invested a further €3.6 million into Danish company Minervax, a Lund University spin-out developing a prophylactic vaccine against Group B Streptococcus (GBS), responsible for 50% of life-threatening infections in newborns, as well as stillbirths and preterm deliveries in pregnant women. Finally, UK-based Procarta Biosystems has received €1.5 million from the Fund. Procarta is developing a pipeline of antibacterials from its Oligonucleotide Antimicrobial platform, a novel nanoparticle approach targeting a new class of antibiotics targets – transcription factors. Its lead asset, PRO-202, is in preclinical development to treat complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) and complicated intraabdominal infections (cIAI).