Palo Alto, CA — 5th of December 2023— Interface Biosciences, a biotech company specialising in the pharmaceutical development of bacterial natural products, announced today that it has secured an oversubscribed $3 million seed round.
Interface Biosciences has secured additional investment to enhance its CausalVision pipeline and progress its inaugural inflammatory disease treatments. New investors LongeVC, SeedFolio, and Gaingels have participated in the latest financing, followed by continued support from existing partners such as Pacific 8 Ventures, Pear VC, Boom Capital, and Ulu Ventures. The company is gearing up for IND-enabling studies, signifying a crucial phase in its development.
Interface Bio identifies natural product drug scaffolds that modulate the immune system and reduce inflammation, enabling novel treatments for a wide range of inflammatory diseases. Their platform identifies potential drug candidates from a virtually untapped reservoir of safe and well-tolerated molecules. The technology aims to create therapies that enhance patient compliance and improve outcomes. The company was founded by Dr. Hannah C. Wastyk, who specialises in bioengineering, and Dr. Will Van Treuren, who specialises in microbiology and immunology, both from Stanford.
Interface CEO Dr. Hannah C. Wastyk commented, “Our primary goal is to bridge advanced research with practical applications. These therapeutic programmes are a testament to that vision.” Interface CSO, Dr. Will Van Treuren, added, “Commensal microbes have co-evolved with humans for millions of years. The molecules they produce have gone through in vivo optimisation for both anti-inflammatory efficacy and high tolerability, making them a uniquely valuable source of drug scaffolds.”
“We've backed Interface Biosciences due to their pioneering and innovative use of machine learning techniques to unearth new medications and therapies,” said Sergey Jakimov, co-founder and managing partner of LongeVC. “By building a unique end-to-end drug discovery platform geared towards identifying immunomodulatory and longevity-promoting commensal natural products, Interface Bio unlocks a suite of potentially promising new treatments that can be developed as traditional pharmaceuticals. These are not limited to wound healing and dermatitis but also have the potential to impact a broader spectrum of inflammatory diseases with intricate pathologies such as inflammatory bowel disease or rheumatoid arthritis.”
The company’s lead therapeutic programme, RC13, is a 44-amino peptide derived from Ruminoocccus gnavus. Like many natural product derivatives, RC13 is multifunctional, promoting wound healing, reducing inflammation, and having antibiotic activity against pathogens including Clostridium difficile and Staphylococcus aureus. Initial data indicates its stability and non-toxic nature. In vivo studies for RC13 will begin in January 2024, with a patent filing expected in Q3 2024.
This successful raise underscores Interface Bio’s commitment to advancing drug discovery in inflammatory diseases. The company aims to expand its research and development initiatives. This partnership highlights a shared goal of addressing medical challenges with novel solutions.
About Interface Biosciences
Interface Biosciences is an AI-enabled, metabolomics-based drug discovery platform focused on inflammatory diseases. Diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, eczema, and rheumatoid arthritis affect millions and represent significant markets. Current treatments often don't fully address the complex pathology of these diseases. The success of AI in this field depends on high-quality datasets. Interface Bio develops a pipeline to create these datasets, which is essential for effective AI-driven drug discovery. To learn more, visit interface.bio.
About Pacific 8 Ventures
Pacific 8 Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests at the nexus of cutting-edge technology platforms and medicine. We focus on backing early-stage startup companies with extraordinary founders. Distinctive companies we’ve backed since early on include Mammoth Biosciences, BillionToOne, Bunkerhill Health, etc. To learn more, visit www.pac8.com.
About LongeVC
LongeVC is an international venture capital firm pursuing an ageless future. Specialising in seed and early-stage investments in biotech and longevity startups. They are improving early cancer diagnostics, leveraging epigenetic reprogramming, deploying AI and machine learning for drug and therapeutic discovery, developing SaaS tools to utilise medical data better, and more. LongeVC is advised by notable scientists and experts such as Thomas Rando, PhD, Evelyne Bischof, MD, and Michael Levitt, PhD. To learn more, visit www.longevc.com.
Interface Biosciences has secured additional investment to enhance its CausalVision pipeline and progress its inaugural inflammatory disease treatments. New investors LongeVC, SeedFolio, and Gaingels have participated in the latest financing, followed by continued support from existing partners such as Pacific 8 Ventures, Pear VC, Boom Capital, and Ulu Ventures. The company is gearing up for IND-enabling studies, signifying a crucial phase in its development.
Interface Bio identifies natural product drug scaffolds that modulate the immune system and reduce inflammation, enabling novel treatments for a wide range of inflammatory diseases. Their platform identifies potential drug candidates from a virtually untapped reservoir of safe and well-tolerated molecules. The technology aims to create therapies that enhance patient compliance and improve outcomes. The company was founded by Dr. Hannah C. Wastyk, who specialises in bioengineering, and Dr. Will Van Treuren, who specialises in microbiology and immunology, both from Stanford.
Interface CEO Dr. Hannah C. Wastyk commented, “Our primary goal is to bridge advanced research with practical applications. These therapeutic programmes are a testament to that vision.” Interface CSO, Dr. Will Van Treuren, added, “Commensal microbes have co-evolved with humans for millions of years. The molecules they produce have gone through in vivo optimisation for both anti-inflammatory efficacy and high tolerability, making them a uniquely valuable source of drug scaffolds.”
“We've backed Interface Biosciences due to their pioneering and innovative use of machine learning techniques to unearth new medications and therapies,” said Sergey Jakimov, co-founder and managing partner of LongeVC. “By building a unique end-to-end drug discovery platform geared towards identifying immunomodulatory and longevity-promoting commensal natural products, Interface Bio unlocks a suite of potentially promising new treatments that can be developed as traditional pharmaceuticals. These are not limited to wound healing and dermatitis but also have the potential to impact a broader spectrum of inflammatory diseases with intricate pathologies such as inflammatory bowel disease or rheumatoid arthritis.”
The company’s lead therapeutic programme, RC13, is a 44-amino peptide derived from Ruminoocccus gnavus. Like many natural product derivatives, RC13 is multifunctional, promoting wound healing, reducing inflammation, and having antibiotic activity against pathogens including Clostridium difficile and Staphylococcus aureus. Initial data indicates its stability and non-toxic nature. In vivo studies for RC13 will begin in January 2024, with a patent filing expected in Q3 2024.
This successful raise underscores Interface Bio’s commitment to advancing drug discovery in inflammatory diseases. The company aims to expand its research and development initiatives. This partnership highlights a shared goal of addressing medical challenges with novel solutions.
About Interface Biosciences
Interface Biosciences is an AI-enabled, metabolomics-based drug discovery platform focused on inflammatory diseases. Diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, eczema, and rheumatoid arthritis affect millions and represent significant markets. Current treatments often don't fully address the complex pathology of these diseases. The success of AI in this field depends on high-quality datasets. Interface Bio develops a pipeline to create these datasets, which is essential for effective AI-driven drug discovery. To learn more, visit interface.bio.
About Pacific 8 Ventures
Pacific 8 Ventures is a venture capital fund that invests at the nexus of cutting-edge technology platforms and medicine. We focus on backing early-stage startup companies with extraordinary founders. Distinctive companies we’ve backed since early on include Mammoth Biosciences, BillionToOne, Bunkerhill Health, etc. To learn more, visit www.pac8.com.
About LongeVC
LongeVC is an international venture capital firm pursuing an ageless future. Specialising in seed and early-stage investments in biotech and longevity startups. They are improving early cancer diagnostics, leveraging epigenetic reprogramming, deploying AI and machine learning for drug and therapeutic discovery, developing SaaS tools to utilise medical data better, and more. LongeVC is advised by notable scientists and experts such as Thomas Rando, PhD, Evelyne Bischof, MD, and Michael Levitt, PhD. To learn more, visit www.longevc.com.