Thursday, October 27, 2011

Langer's Selecta and Bind land Russian nano firm backing

By Rodney H. Brown

In the words of Carl Reiner, “The Russians are coming!” but instead of landing in Gloucester with a sub, they are landing big amounts of funding in Watertown – at Selecta Biosciences Inc. – and in Cambridge at Bind Biosciences Inc.

According to a pair of releases, the firm RUSNANO participated in separate but identical $47.25 million investments to both Selecta and Bind. Since both companies are involved in nanotechnology for drug delivery – Selecta makes nanoparticle immunomodulatory drugs to treat human disease, and Bind makes nanoparticle technology that concentrates a drug at the intended site of action while minimizing exposure to the rest of the system – it makes sense that they are getting the funds from a firm that describes itself as an open joint-stock company created “through reorganization of state corporation Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies.”

Selecta officials said in their release that the company would use the new funds to speed up development of its pipeline of products and expand the applications of its Synthetic Vaccine Particle, as the company is labeling its nantotech drug platform. Bind, for its part, plans to do the same for its pipeline of selective, targeted drug candidates, which are based on BIND’s proprietary technology for Accurin therapeutics.

In both cases, the $47.25 million funding comes in the form of two investments. The first is a Series D round which includes RUSNANO as a new investor, along with other unnamed new investors, and participation from previous backers. In the case of Selecta, previous investors include Polaris Venture Partners, Flagship Ventures, OrbiMed Advisors, NanoDimension and Leukon Investments. For Bind, previous investors are Polaris, Flagship and NanoDimension, as well as ARCH Venture Partners, DHK Investments and EndeavourVision.

The second half of the funding is made up of $25.25 million aside from the Series D, and it will allow each company to establish separate wholly-owned subsidiaries in Moscow.

In August, Selecta won a subcontract to use its SVP technology to develop a vaccine for malaria. The subcontract awarded by the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) through its Malaria Vaccine Production and Support Services contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

Bind, earlier this month, raised $4.75 million in a new debt financing round, federal documents stated.

In addition to the similar funding activity today, both companies share a founder in Mass High Tech All-Star and MIT super-serial entrepreneur Robert Langer.