Vedanta Biosciences Completes C-2 Round of Financing with CEC Capital Group's US affiliate as FA

Vedanta Biosciences is one of the top companies worldwide developing consortia of microbiome with drug-like properties. Vedanta’s self-developed technologies can precisely control these consortia with drug-like properties, thus overcoming the need to deal with the inconsistencies of directly sourced fecal donor material. Vedanta has brought a number of products through clinical testing. The rights of two of Vedanta’s products were sold to large international pharmaceutical companies including BMS and Janssen for further development. This most recent capital raise is an example of a Chinese investment bank raising capital in the Asia Pacific region for a company outside of China. This transaction is a testament to CEC Capital Group’s strong grasp of internationally cutting-edge technologies as well as its comprehensive investor coverage in the Asia Pacific region.

Vedanta Biosciences is a clinical-stage biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Vedanta is focused on developing a new category of therapies for immune-mediated diseases based on rationally-defined consortia of human microbiome-derived bacteria. Today, Vedanta announced the completion of its C-2 round of financing, bringing the total capital raised in its Series C and C-2 round to $62.1 million. C-2 Round investors include QUAD Investment Management, SV Investment Corp., Shinhan Investment-Private, Shinhan Investment Private Equity, Shinhan Capital Yeollim Partners, Partners Investment Co., FC Capital, and SymBiosis LLC. C-Round investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Rock Springs Capital, JSR Corporation, Shumway Capital, Invesco Asset Management, Health for Life (Seventure Partners), and PureTech Health. CEC Capital Group's US affiliate, China eCapital Partners, LLC, served as Financial Advisor to Vedanta Biosciences during this C-2 round of financing.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance Vedanta’s clinical portfolio including a phase I/II study of VE416 used to treat food allergies, a phase Ib/II study of VE800 and OPDIVO® (nivolumab) used to treat advanced or metastatic cancers, and the ongoing phase II study of VE303 used to treat recurrent Clostridium difficile (rCDI).

“This financing will enable us to continue to advance defined bacterial consortia as a new modality,” said Bernat Olle, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. “We are grateful to our new and existing investors for their support.”

Vedanta Biosciences is developing drug candidates based on consortia of natural non-pathogenic bacterial strains designed to effect robust and durable changes in a patient’s gut microbiome. In contrast to fecal transplants or the administration of fecal fractions, Vedanta Biosciences’ consortia are defined compositions of bacteria manufactured from pure, clonal cell banks, bypassing the need to rely on the direct sourcing of fecal donor material of inconsistent composition.

About Vedanta Biosciences

Vedanta Biosciences is a leader within the field of clinical-stage gastrointestinal microbiome treatments. Using rationally-defined consortia of bacteria, Vedanta is developing new therapies to treat infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergies, and immuno-oncology. Vedanta Biosciences has a number of proprietary capabilities including what is believed to be the largest collection of human-gut associated bacteria, assays and bioinformatics techniques for consortia design and optimization, and facilities for cGMP-compliant manufacturing of rationally defined bacterial consortia.

Vedanta Biosciences’ pioneering work, in collaboration with its scientific co-founders, has led to the identification of human commensal bacteria that induce a range of immune responses—including induction of regulatory T cells, CD8+ T cells, and Th17 cells, among others. These advances have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Science (multiple), Nature (2013-2019), Cell, and Nature Immunology. Vedanta Biosciences has harnessed these biological insights to generate a pipeline of investigational live biotherapeutic products (LBPs) for infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergies, and immuno-oncology. This pipeline includes three clinical-stage product candidates currently being evaluated for the treatment of recurrent Clostridium difficile and inflammatory bowel disease (in collaboration with Janssen Biotech, Inc.), and food allergies, as well as a fourth product candidate for patients with advanced or metastatic cancers (in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s checkpoint inhibitor OPDIVO®) expected to enter clinical stage testing in 2019.

Vedanta’s IP portfolio contains over 30 issued patents with coverage extending to 2037. Vedanta Biosciences was founded by PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC). Its scientific co-founders are world-renowned experts in immunology and microbiology who have pioneered the fields of innate immunity, Th17, and regulatory T cell biology.

About CEC Capital Group

CEC Capital Group is a leading investment bank focused on new areas of growth for the TMT, consumer and health industries in China and abroad. CEC Capital Group has branches in Beijing and Shanghai. Its US affiliate, China eCapital Partners, LLC, has offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. On the asset management side, CEC Capital Group is currently managing an RMB fund and a US dollar fund. CEC Capital Group has focused on the healthcare industry since 2007 and is one of the leading investment banks covering the healthcare sector in China. The healthcare team consists of professionals with experience working in R&D, investment funds, medical institutions, and large multinational conglomerates in the healthcare industry.