Affinivax, a biotech startup out of Cambridge, announced Thursday it closed on a $120 million Series B round led by Viking Global Investors with participation from Bain Capital Life Sciences and Ziff Capital Partners. This is the company’s first new investment since it raised $2.5 million in initial seed and Series A funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2014.
The company was created to develop and improve upon vaccines for bacterial infections and other infectious or immune-mediated diseases. Using its Multiple Antigen Presentation System (MAPS) platform, Affinivax is doing clinical trials for a pneumococcal vaccine, which targets Streptococcus pneumoniae, one of the most common causes of severe pneumonia (a more extreme form of the COVID-19 disease, according to the World Health Organization). The vaccine includes 24 “pneumococcal serotypes” or strains, which is more than any other vaccine on the market or in clinical testing today, according to the company.
“With the ongoing increase in the global health threat posed by a broad range of infectious diseases, new prevention strategies to combat disease are more important than ever,” Dr. Steven Altschuler, managing director of Ziff Capital Partners, said in a statement. “We believe Affinivax’s novel MAPS vaccine technology with its promise for broad protection can play a key role in the prevention of serious infectious diseases.”
Affinivax says it plans to use this $120 million to continue advancing its pneumococcal vaccine and push vaccine candidates targeting hospital-association infections into clinical studies.
