Quench Bio, a biotech startup co-founded by Arix, emerges from stealth with $50M Series A funding

Quench Bio, a biotech startup co-founded by Arix Bioscience and Atlas Venture, has emerged from stealth mode  with a total of  $50 million in Series A funding. Quench is leveraging new insights into gasdermin biology and innate immunity to develop medicines for severe inflammatory diseases.

Founded in 2018, Quench Bio is led by a team of drug developers and scientists with deep experience in inflammation and small molecule drug discovery, Quench Bio’s lead therapeutic approach centres on inhibiting the protein Gasdermin D, which has recently been discovered as a key target at the core of multiple inflammatory cell death pathways, including pyroptosis and NETosis. This is at the cutting edge of contemporary drug development and a field of significant commercial interest by big pharma.

The company has built a highly experienced leadership team, led by Chief Executive Officer Samantha Truex, the former Chief Business Officer of Padlock Therapeutics, which was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb in 2016.

Arix and Atlas Venture co-founded and seeded the company in 2018 along with co-founders Mark Tebbe, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, and Mike Nolan, Ph.D., Head of Biology, together with Arturo Zychlinsky and Herbert Waldmann, both Directors at The Max Planck Institute who collaborated with the Lead Discovery Center on inhibitors of NETosis and gasdermin.

In addition to Arix and its co-founding investor Atlas Venture, RA Capital led the Series A and were joined by AbbVie Ventures. Josh Resnick, Managing Director and co-head of Ventures at RA Capital and Adam Houghton, Head of AbbVie Ventures will join the board, alongside existing directors Jonathan Tobin of Arix Bioscience and Bruce Booth of Atlas Venture. Additionally, Arix’s John Cassidy will continue his role as Board Observer.

Commenting on the funding and the launch, Jonathan Tobin, Investment Director at Arix and Board Director of Quench Bio, said: “We are excited and privileged to work alongside such a distinguished team of entrepreneurs and co-investors to develop first-in-class medicines that could make a major difference to patients suffering from chronic inflammatory and auto-immune diseases. The genesis of Quench originated from our long-standing relationship with the Lead Discovery Center in Germany and its close connections with the Max Planck Society. It exemplifies the advantage of Arix’s transatlantic approach, combining the best of European and US science and talent.”

“The successful financing underscores the potential of our innovative approach. We are delighted by the strong support from Arix as well as our existing and new investors and I look forward to leveraging their extensive experience as we develop multiple programs to target severe inflammatory diseases,” Samantha Truex, Chief Executive Officer of Quench Bio, said.

Arix Bioscience plc is a global venture capital company focused on investing in and building breakthrough biotech companies around cutting edge advances in life sciences.