ATyr Pharma Raises $76M Round to Advance Physiocrine Drugs

aTyr Pharma logo used with permission

San Diego’s aTyr Pharma has gotten all dressed up, but what’s the big occasion?

The biotherapeutics company said yesterday it recently raised $76 million in Series E financing to advance its program in physiocrine-based drugs for treating rare immune diseases. The latest round brings total financing for aTyr (pronounced a-tire) to at least $184 million in the 10 years since the company was founded.

A new investor, Sofinnova Ventures, and an unnamed large institutional biotech investor led the round, which included a number of big crossover investment funds, including T. Rowe Price, Deerfield, and Federated Investors; hedge fund Rock Springs Capital Management; the biotech-focused fund EcoR1 Capital; Sphera Global Healthcare, and two other unnamed institutional investors. Existing venture investors and an unnamed public investment fund also participated.

With all the big institutional and non-traditional investors in a biotech deal, could an IPO be far behind?

In a statement, aTyr said proceeds from the round will be used to support development of the company’s lead drug candidate in an early stage trial for patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a genetically based degeneration of muscles of the face, shoulder blades, and upper arms. The company also said some proceeds of the round also would be used to fund “an expansion to additional indications.”

The company specializes in drugs derived from a new class of natural proteins called “physiocrines,” which offer potential therapeutic advantages to existing anti-inflammatory drugs through improved selectivity, efficacy, and reduced side effects. Paul Schimmel, a biochemist at The Scripps Research Institute, helped show that physiocrines are naturally occurring proteins that modulate the body’s immune response. He is a scientific founder of aTyr and serves on the company’s board.

The company said Sofinnova general partner Srinivas Akkaraju also is joining aTyr’s board of directors, and noted Akkaraju has a successful investment record in public companies, including Eyetech Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:EYET]]), Intercept Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ICPT]]), Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SGEN]]), and Synageva BioPharma (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GEVA]]).

In 2013, aTyr raised $59M in a round that included $49M invested by Alta Partners, Cardinal Partners, Domain Associates, and Polaris Partners, and a $10 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.