French VC Sev­en­ture fo­cus­es sec­ond fund on fer­tile mi­cro­bio­me field — tar­gets €200M-plus

A few years ago, the spec­tac­u­lar fail­ure of Seres Ther­a­peu­tics’ sem­i­nal ef­fort in­to de­vel­op­ing a “crap­sule” — a syn­thet­ic, fer­ment­ed mi­cro­bio­me ther­a­peu­tic de­rived by a man­u­fac­tur­ing process that does not re­quire hu­man donor ma­te­r­i­al — de­railed an emerg­ing field work­ing to har­ness the in­sights gained from gut mi­cro­bio­ta to de­vel­op drugs. But since then, the suc­cess of fe­cal trans­plant ther­a­pies to treat stub­born­ly re­cur­rent C. diff in­fec­tions has en­tered the bio­phar­ma zeit­geist, at­tract­ed a buck­et of biobucks and even in­spired the takeover of a key play­er, Re­bi­otix. The ther­a­peu­tic ef­fort has resurged along­side a bur­geon­ing in­ter­est in nu­tri­tion — think pro­bi­otics. French VC Sev­en­ture Part­ners has fin­gers in every mi­cro­bio­me pie — drugs, di­ag­nos­tics, dig­i­tal of­fer­ings and nu­tri­tion — and it has launched its sec­ond ded­i­cat­ed mi­cro­bio­me fund with a tar­get of more than €200 mil­lion.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER