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Immune Regulation Limited raises £40.6 million / $53.4 million Series B Equity Financing

Series B round led by Morningside Ventures provides foundation to accelerate the drug development of first-in-class immune-resetting therapies.

(London UK and Boston USA, 21 September 2020) Immune Regulation Limited (“Immune Regulation”), a US and UK based clinical stage biotechnology company, today announced the closing of a Series B funding round led by Boston based Morningside Ventures (“Morningside”), alongside existing shareholders including London based 24Haymarket. The investment round is structured in two tranches and includes an option for Morningside to invest further capital at a step up to the initial two tranches. In addition, Immune Regulation has raised £6 million / $7.8 million of advance subscription funds from private investors led by Metellus AG which has been applied to the issue of shares. Total aggregate funds equal £40.6 million / $53.4 million.

The new funding will accelerate Immune Regulation’s efforts to develop first-in-class drug product candidates that reset the immune system from a pro-inflammatory state to a balanced state, with the potential to achieve long term disease remission in autoimmune and allergic diseases.

“We have two clinical stage drug product candidates, ‘1805 and ‘1104, that have demonstrated impressive efficacy and safety data in phase 2a clinical studies on Rheumatoid Arthritis and Allergic Disease respectively and we are delighted to have Morningside as a partner to advance our programs,” said Jonathan Rigby, U.S. based Group CEO of Immune Regulation. “This partnership with Morningside allows us to build our team in the U.S. and the UK as we prepare for multiple phase 2 clinical studies for both of our lead assets. In addition, we are progressing towards a clinical evaluation of ‘1104 to treat COVID-19 related Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS).”

“After extensive due diligence, Morningside concluded that Immune Regulation has drug products with significant potential to treat autoimmune and allergic diseases,” said Isaac Cheng M.D. of Morningside Ventures. “I am pleased to be joining the Board of Directors and working with management to build a strong company that will deliver on the promise of its’ drug product candidates.”

 

For further enquiries 

Immune Regulation Ltd
Jonathan Rigby, CEO
+1 510 589 3268
jonathan.rigby@immuneregulation.com

 

About Immune Regulation

Immune Regulation Limited is a US and UK based clinical stage biotechnology company, pioneering new technologies for regulating and resetting the immune system and developing novel first-in-class therapies for inflammatory and immunological diseases. Immune Regulation’s first-in-class immune resetting therapies, IRL201805 (‘1805) and IRL201104 (‘1104), have demonstrated unique efficacy and safety in pre-clinical and human studies without suppressing the immune system. These therapies exhibit short pharmacokinetic activity but reset the immune system from a pro-inflammatory to a regulatory state to induce disease remission in patients with allergic and immune mediated diseases, without the negative effects of chronic current therapies. www.immuneregulation.com

About Morningside

Morningside Group was founded in 1986, by the Chan family of Hong Kong, to make private equity and venture capital investments. The group is managed by investment professionals who are entrepreneurial, have deep industry knowledge and are effective in the local environment in which they operate. In addition to its investment activities, Morningside Group is strongly committed to social responsibility. To learn more, visit www.morningside.com

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement includes forward-looking statements, being statements made in the announcement that are not historical fact. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of words including “anticipate”, “may”, “believe”, “estimate”, “intend”, “expect” and words of similar meaning. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements contemplated by the forward-looking statements in this announcement. The forward-looking statements speak only to the date of this announcement. Neither Immune Regulation nor Morningside, nor any shareholder, affiliate, employee, adviser or representative of either Immune Regulation or Morningside, nor any other person named in this announcement shall be under any obligation to, and all of those persons expressly disclaim any obligation to, update or revise the forward-looking statements contained in this announcement.

21 September 2020

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Jorge De Alba, ph.d.

Vice President, Discovery and Translational Science

Dr Jorge De Alba is an accomplished scientist that brings over 25 years of experience in drug discovery successfully leading preclinical and translational research in the immunology and inflammation space across different biopharmaceutical organizations.

Paul Eggleton, ph.d.

Vice President, Immunology

Professor Paul Eggleton has 30 years of experience working on the immune regulatory function of chaperone proteins in autoimmune, neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases.  He has work extensively in the field of immunopathology in North America and Europe in medical institutions and the pharmaceutical industry.

Maria Pittaras, pmp

Vice President, Portfolio and Program Management

Maria has over 25 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. She has a successful track record of new product planning, as well as facilitation of cross-functional, high-performing project teams across all phases of drug development from preclinical through commercialization.

David Southwell

Chairman

In addition to his role as Chairman of Revolo, David Southwell serves on the Board of Directors for Rocket Pharmaceuticals and PTC Therapeutics. David is the former CEO of TScan Therapeutics. Before that, he served as President and CEO of Inotek Pharmaceuticals until its merger with Rocket Pharmaceuticals in 2018. David has held other senior leadership roles and Board of Director positions at companies including Human Genome Sciences, Sepracor, Spero Therapeutics, inVentiv Health, and THL Credit.

Kari Brown, M.D.

Chief Medical Officer

Kari Brown, a board-certified allergist and immunologist, brings 10 years of experience in clinical treatment deployment, development and strategy to Revolo. In her various roles, Kari has played an integral part in advancing pipelines across allergy and immunology disease indications.

Femi Oluboyede

Vice President, Technical Operations, CMC

Femi Oluboyede has over 20 years of experience within the bio-pharma industry, with a proven track record of achieving strategic corporate objectives. Through his roles, Femi has excelled in fostering alignment across functional teams, including Process Development, Tech-transfers, cGMP Manufacturing in Biologics, Small molecules, Proteins and Synthetic Peptides. He has succeeded in delivering investigational products and providing support across different phases of clinical trials.

Tunde Otulana, M.D.

Non-Executive Director

Tunde is currently the Chief Medical Officer of Veloxis Pharmaceuticals in North Carolina, USA since August 2020. Prior to Veloxis he was Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. His career, which spans about 30 years in industry, government and academia, includes leadership roles at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceutical Inc. and the US Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”). Tunde is a physician trained in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.

Beth Alley

Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Pipeline Planning

Beth Alley has over 20 years of experience within the biopharmaceutical industry in regulatory affairs, commercial strategy, and medical writing throughout all phases of drug development. Her primary areas of focus have been in development of biologics for treatment of autoimmune, inflammatory, and infectious diseases.

Glen Giovanetti

Non-Executive Director

Glen Giovanetti has more than 35 years of experience in strategy and operational leadership in the life science industry as well as in financial governance, risk and reporting as EY’s Global Biotechnology Sector Leader and Life Sciences Sector Leader. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Life Science Cares, Teon Therapeutics and XW Pharma.

Marla S. Persky

Non-Executive Director

Marla S. Persky currently serves as the chief executive officer and president of WOMN LLC. She has more than 25 years of international senior business and legal experience in the pharmaceutical industry having held numerous business and legal positions at Boehringer Ingelheim and Baxter International. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Xeris Pharmaceuticals, YGEIA Consulting Group, Primary Stages, World Neighbors and A Better Chance in Ridgefield.

Dora Rau

Senior Vice President, Quality

Dora Rau brings 25 years of experience in development and commercial operations for drugs, biologics, devices and combination products to the team. She has held numerous executive-level quality positions, with expertise in building quality systems and in leading teams to attain successful regulatory authority inspection outcomes and product approvals.

Jonathan Gold

Chief Financial Officer

Over the last 25 years, Jonathan Gold has been an institutional venture capitalist, a public fund manager, a founder, an operating executive, and a board member for companies across sectors including life sciences. In those roles, he was active in the development, financing and mergers and acquisitions for numerous public and private companies.

Michael Albisser

Non-Executive Director​

Michael is a partner of Metellus, a Zurich and London-based venture capital firm investing in technology and life sciences with ground-breaking potential. Having more than 25 years of experience in the finance area he is responsible for finance, tax, and deal structures. He serves on the board of various venture-backed companies.

Dr. Isaac Cheng, m.d.

Non-Executive Director

Dr. Isaac Cheng is currently an investment professional at Morningside, a venture capital and private equity institution based in Boston USA, and Shanghai China. Dr. Cheng focuses primarily on biopharmaceutical and healthcare investments. He has served on numerous public and private company boards.

Peter Greenleaf

Non-Executive Director

Peter Greenleaf currently serves as the chief executive officer (CEO) and member of the Board of Directors of Aurinia, (NASDAQ: AUPH / TSX: AUP), an autoimmune therapeutics company. He has held several other CEO and chairman roles. He is also currently a member of the Board of Directors of Antares Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATRS) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Biodelivery Sciences International, Inc. (NASDAQ: BDSI).

Marylyn Rigby

SVP of Marketing and Investor Relations

Marylyn Rigby is an experienced pharmaceutical, biotech, and drug delivery professional. In addition to her expertise in marketing, public and investor relations, she has a successful track record with business development, licensing, public and private equity financing, strategy and other key corporate functions.

Nancy Vinh

SVP of Clinical Operations

Nancy Vinh brings over 20 years of experience in managing early and late phase, international clinical trials for drugs, biologics, cell therapy and combination products across a wide range of therapeutic areas to the team. She has served as head of clinical operations and led registrational and label expansion trials execution.

Team Members

Dr. Clare Burgess

Chief Development Officer

Dr. Clare Burgess has 24 years of experience in clinical drug development as a pharmacologist and has worked across a wide range of therapeutic areas within the pharmaceutical industry. She has held multiple leadership roles and has led multidisciplinary teams across the world.

Jeff Myers, m.d., ph.d

Chief Medical Officer

Jeff Myers, M.D., Ph.D., has 20 years of experience in medical affairs, regulatory and clinical development within the biopharmaceutical industry, with focuses on cardiovascular, pulmonary, oncology, and inflammatory diseases.

Before entering the industry, he practiced as a congenital cardiac surgeon and served as the chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and as Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School.

Team Members

Dr. Roly Foulkes

Chief Scientific Officer

A true drug discoverer, Dr. Roly Foulkes has 25 years of experience building and delivering innovative therapeutic portfolios within the immunology and inflammatory disease space. He has a strong record advising small and medium sized immunology biopharma companies in developing competitive therapeutic strategies and bringing new innovative molecules to the clinic.

Jones w (woody) Bryan, ph.d.

President & Chief Executive Officer

Jones (Woody) Bryan, Ph.D., brings almost 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry to the team, having led successful business development operations in both private and public pharma and biotech companies.

Jonathan Rigby, mba

Group Chief Executive Officer

As employee #1 of Revolo Biotherapeutics in the US, Jonathan Rigby has led the company through substantial and rapid growth. He brings three decades of experience creating value and opportunities for companies in the pharmaceutical, biotech and drug delivery technology industry.

Team Members