A little more than six months after winning an endorsement from Pfizer for its IBD microbiome program, Vedanta Biosciences is ready to step on the gas.

Vedanta wrapped up a $68 million Series D raise Wednesday morning, which included the $25 million equity investment Pfizer plunked down back in January. With the biotech content with its early-stage results and manufacturing capabilities, Vedanta is getting ready to potentially launch multiple mid- to late-stage studies and needed the extra cash, CEO Bernat Olle tells Endpoints News.

Since its founding in 2006, the partners at Qiming have built a rep for themselves as prescient venture investors, offering capital to startups like Zai Lab at a time when it was far from certain whether China’s nascent biopharma industry would ever take off.

But it did, and now Qiming has gathered $500 million to branch out.

The VC firm is now launching a public equities unit dubbed Springhill Fund, which will invest in listed companies in a variety of healthcare subsectors with an initial regional focus in Greater China and Asia, Endpoints News has learned.

The biotech IPO train continues steadily chugging along, with a new passenger punching their ticket late Tuesday.

Branford, CT-based IsoPlexis is jumping aboard, submitting its SEC paperwork with a $100 million ask penciled in and aiming to bring its personalized protein “barcodes” to Nasdaq. Tuesday’s S-1 comes a little over six months after IsoPlexis nabbed a $135 million Series D led by Perceptive.

In biotech, most startups get about 5 years to get their preclinical act in order and jump into human studies before the backers get restive and start looking for the exits. At the 2015-founded Turnstone Biologics, they hit that line. But instead of losing its investors’ interest, it’s been picking up speed and backers.

Now, with a lead oncolytic virus in an early-stage study and a second therapy from the TIL side poised for an IND, the team under CEO Sammy Farah has changed the story to clinical development. And they scored an $80 million Series D from a broad syndicate to get this new chapter under way in style.

About four years after closing its Series B round the first time, Horama is adding another $25.1 million to its coffers for its work on a next-gen gene therapy that could treat retinitis pigmentosa patients not covered by Roche’s Luxturna — and it’s sporting a new name to boot.

The French biotech, now called Coave Therapeutics, has expanded its Series B round, bringing its total raise to $39 million, CEO Rodolphe Clerval announced early Wednesday morning. The latest round was led by Seroba Life Sciences, with a hand from Théa Open Innovation, eureKARE, Fund+, Omnes Capital, V-Bio Ventures, Kurma Partners, Idinvest, GO Capital, and Sham Innovation Santé/Turenne.

Taking on a failed drug from one of biopharma’s biggest players and spinning it into a winner is never an easy task. But in the go-go world of Chinese oncology, any risk is a risk worth taking — and one biotech’s gamble could soon pay off.

Adlai Nortye, a Hangzhou, China-based biotech with operations in North Brunswick, NJ, has applied to trade on the Hong Kong Exchange just days after scoring a fundraising round to pursue its license-heavy business model, according to a Tuesday filing.

Most drug developers might remember DNP, the yellowish compound that’s been used over the years as a herbicide and chemical intermediate, as a deadly diet pill. But Shaharyar Khan and Allen Cunningham wondered about the effect that it has shown, first in a 1930s study, in burning excess calories.

The duo, who have worked together for close to 20 years at a biotech focused on mitochondria-based therapies, found the biology familiar. In cells — whether you’re a yeast or a human being — a mitochondria takes substrates, fats and sugars and generates energy. Slow that down, the theory goes, and the body burns more calories to get its energy then returns to a state of energy balance.

Back in 2019, GHO Capital Partners claimed it closed the biggest-ever private equity fund focused on European healthcare, raising a mammoth $1 billion-plus. Now the firm is closing its next fund with double that amount.

GHO Capital raised $2 billion-plus under its third fund, GHO Capital III, which is closing less than four months after entering the market, the firm said on Tuesday. The fund, which drew support from both new and old investors, blew past GHO’s initial target of about $1.47 billion (€1.25 billion).

The newest healthcare blank-check company has arrived, coming from the CEO of a company that is attempting to shake up the digital pharmaceutical space.

The SPAC known as Aesther Healthcare Acquisition filed for its initial offering late Monday, putting down $100 million as its raise estimate. Led by Suren Ajjarapu, chief executive of online drug marketplace TRxADE Health, the SPAC is targeting pharmaceuticals, medtech and healthcare IT.

Diana Saraceni knows how to put together a VC fund. After co-founding Italy-based Panakès Partners back in 2015, the managing partner is now closing the sixth fund of her career — but this time, her firm is dipping into the biotech sector.

Panakès unveiled its second fund on Tuesday morning, with $180 million (€150 million) from a slate of investors anchored by EIF and the Fund of Funds managed by CDP Venture Capital SGR. This raise, dubbed the Purple Fund, will focus on early-stage life sciences companies in Europe and specifically Italy — areas which Panakès says are “underserved.”