Arsanis closes Series A financing for $10 million

Arsanis, Inc, a recently founded biotechnology company dedicated to the development of anti-infective monoclonal antibody therapeutics, today announced the closing of a Series A financing with a total funding amount of $10 million. Proceeds from the initial financing will be used to advance several programs in the anti-microbial infectious disease area.

The financing involved equal contributions from OrbiMed Advisors, Polaris Venture Partners and SV Life Sciences. Managing Partners, Carl Gordon, Terry McGuire and Mike Ross joined the founders on Arsanis' Board of Directors.

Arsanis was founded in the fall of 2010 by Dr. Eszter Nagy (former SVP of Research at Intercell, AG), Dr. Tillman Gerngross (Co-founder and CEO of Adimab, and Co-founder and CSO of GlycoFi, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co. since 2006) and Errik Anderson (Co-founder and COO of Adimab) who bring together expertise in monoclonal antibody discovery, infectious disease biology and commercializing innovation. The company will initiate its operations in Vienna, Austria.

"Managing infectious diseases is the only field of modern medicine where current approaches are failing. The growing concern over broad resistance to conventional antibiotics demands new treatment modalities and we believe that monoclonal antibodies will play a major role in the anti-infective arena in the next couple of years," explained Arsanis Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Eszter Nagy. "The current funding will support several pre-clinical proof-of-concept programs that will be the basis for the company's future development decisions."

"We extensively surveyed the infective disease space and wanted to find the right partner to build a company focused on this important emerging medical need. In Dr. Nagy we found an international leader who has the creativity, deep domain expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit to build a world class biotech company. It is a pleasure to work with her and the rest of the Arsanis team," said Arsanis Co-founder Dr. Tillman Gerngross.

"We expect the infectious disease space to be quite active in the next couple of years and we believe that Arsanis will be a major player," said Carl Gordon from OrbiMed Advisors.

"Over the past 12 years Polaris has backed four of Tillman's companies and the opportunity around Arsanis was very compelling," added Terry McGuire from Polaris. "Arsanis has an outstanding team working in an important area, paired with excellent discovery technology and a strong investor syndicate."

"We have been closely monitoring opportunities in the infectious disease space. When we saw the Arsanis opportunity coming together we wanted to help shape the company and ended up betting on a very experienced infectious disease scientist in Dr. Nagy and an exceptionally powerful antibody discovery technology," said Dr. Michael Ross from SV Life Sciences.