Vancouver-based biotech startup Reverb Therapeutics has closed a $12-million USD ($17-million CAD) seed round to harness the power of the immune system against disease.
The all-equity round was led by founding investor Amplitude Ventures, with participation from the Myeloma Investment Fund, KdT Ventures, Finchley Healthcare Ventures, InBC, and newly-Canadian venture capital firm Seido Capital.
Amplitude Ventures principal Bharat Srinivasa and partner Jean-François Pariseau are taking seats on Reverb’s board of directors as a result of the round.
Reverb was founded in 2023 by CEO David de Graaf and chief science officer Surjit Dixit out of Amplitude Ventures’ Pre-Amp venture studio program. Its proprietary platform, called Amplify•R, aims to modify the actions of immune system proteins called endogenous cytokines to redirect them to areas of interest, like cells involved in cancer or autoimmune diseases.
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In a statement, Reverb claimed its platform combines engineering of bispecific antibodies (antibodies that bind to two different molecules) with data-driven modelling of antibody interactions, avoiding hurdles like systemic toxicity, immunogenicity, and manufacturing issues, which have blocked other attempts to manipulate cytokines to treat disease.
Reverb’s lead program, AMP01, blocks a protein involved in tamping down the body’s immune response, while delivering a protein that helps to expand and activate the T cells that help the body fight infections and cancer cells. The company also claimed that in vivo preclinical studies have established a proof-of-concept of its platform’s ability to shrink tumors by redirecting endogenous cytokines.
“The preclinical data generated to date are extremely exciting and we believe that the Amplify•R platform will enable Reverb to succeed where many attempts using exogenous cytokines ran into insurmountable obstacles,” Srinivasa said in a statement.
The seed funding will help take AMP01 to the “candidate stage” and fuel development of additional programs spanning other cytokines and additional cellular targets, Reverb CEO David de Graaf said in a statement. A candidate molecule is ready to bring into the final studies to support regulatory approval to start human trials, de Graaf explained to BetaKit in an email statement.
“This is a major value inflection point for biotechs making new drugs and a place where companies often stop to raise the money to do those final studies as well as early stage clinical follow-up,” de Graaf said.
Reverb was one of the first four announced investments out of Amplitude Ventures’ second precision medicine venture capital fund, which it closed in May 2024 with $263 million CAD. The fund makes investments in new precision medicine companies, which exist at the intersection of tech and healthcare, doling out between $5 million and $30 million per company.
Feature image courtesy Julia Koblitz via Unsplash.