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June 11, 2019 Bioscience Notebook

Microbiome biotech raises $12M, relocates to Elm City

PHOTO | Contributed James Rosen
By Natalie Missakian

A biotechnology company focused on curing inflammatory bowel disease by targeting bacteria that inhabit the gastrointestinal system is returning to its New Haven birthplace after raising $12 million.

Artizan Biosciences has been operating in stealth mode since being spun out of Yale in 2016. Now, the latest infusion of capital has enabled the startup to expand to 11 employees, CEO James Rosen said Monday.

The company recently relocated from Durham, N.C., where Rosen and its largest investor were based, to a 3,700-square-foot specialized microbiology lab in Science Park, to be closer to its founders and Yale University, Rosen said.

Founded by Yale School of Medicine immunologists Richard Flavell, Noah Palm and Marcel R. de Zoete, Artizan is the latest biotech to focus on the gut microbiome, the trillions of microorganisms that take up residence in a person’s digestive system.

While some bugs are beneficial, helping the body digest or extract nutrients from food, others trigger a mild immune response in some people, leading to inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, which afflict an estimated 3 million U.S. adults.

Artizan's research found the problematic bacteria are coated with an antibody known as Immunoglobulin A, or IgA. The company is using technology developed at Yale to pinpoint and eliminate the troublesome bugs, Rosen said.

The approach differs from current IBD therapies, which merely tamp down the immune system’s response to the bacteria, Rosen explained. He said the technology can eventually be applied to other inflammatory diseases of the skin, liver and central nervous system.

“The bugs that are causing disease are our targets, and if we can, through the therapies that we’re developing, neutralize or eliminate those causal targets, then we could actually have a hope of curing disease,” he said.

The startup’s investors include Hatteras Venture Partners, Malin Investments, Johnson & Johnson, Osage University Partners and Elm Street Ventures.

Artizan also has an agreement with North Carolina-based Brii Biosciences to develop and commercialize up to three drugs in the Artizan portfolio in China.

The company recently hired Paul Miller, a former vice president of infectious biology for AstraZeneca, as its chief scientific officer and expects to begin its first human trials within two years.

Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com

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