Hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed to Boston-area companies investigating how to manipulate the microbiome within everyone to treat a plethora of illnesses, from serious gastrointestinal infections to food allergies to cancer.
The latest addition to that figure is $27 million to Vedanta Biosciences, which announced its Series C round on Dec. 24. The company has raised $82 million since it launched in 2010, making it one of the best-funded private companies working on microbiome therapeutics in the area. It also announced a partnership with Bristol-Myers Squibb in December.
The funding will allow Vedanta to move its drug candidates forward to the large-scale clinical trials it needs for Food and Drug Administration approval. Vedanta’s drugs are based on so-called microbial consortia — defined groups of bacteria put into a drug. That approach sets it apart from other microbiome-focused companies, which typically start with donated fecal material and purify it down to something useful.
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