InterVenn Biosciences raises $34 million for cancer diagnostics

InterVenn Biosciences, a Redwood City, California-based biotech startup announced today it has raised $34 million in Series B funding to commercialize the diagnostic for ovarian cancer and to also accelerate development efforts for the immuno-oncology treatment response and colorectal cancer indications.

The round was led by Anzu Partners, with participation from Genoa Ventures, Amplify Partners, and True Ventures; Xeraya Capital and the Ojjeh Family joined the syndicate as well. In conjunction with the funding, InterVenn also announced it has hired John Leite, Ph.D., as the company’s Chief Business Officer.

Founded in 2017 by Aldo Carrascoso, Carlito Lebrilla, Carolyn Bertozzi, and Lieza Danan, InterVenn focuses on the identification, quantification, and classification of Glycoproteomic and other PTM signals found in human blood and tissue for biomarker and target discovery. It specializes in the fields of biotechnology and life science.

InterVenn utilizes a proprietary glycoproteomic biomarker interrogation platform using AI and mass spectrometry for next-gen precision medicine. The company is working to find new solutions in ovarian, pancreatic, liver, prostate, and kidney cancer, together with applications from the Vista suite of solutions for treatment and monitoring, immune profiling, patient stratification, and disease progression.

“InterVenn enables a powerful new class of cancer diagnostics based on glycobiology,” said Michael. “Advances in computation and chemistry will enable its unique, high throughput platform to have a dramatic positive impact on human health.”

Over the last 15 years, glycobiology has developed into an increasingly solid scientific discipline, based on the seminal work of luminaries Professors Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D. (Stanford University) and Carlito Lebrilla, Ph.D. (UC Davis), both of whom helped co-found InterVenn and are serving as members of the company’s Scientific Advisory Board with Carolyn Bertozzi as Chairperson.

InterVenn has demonstrated that analysis of protein glycosylation, the most common and most complex form of post-translational protein modification, is a highly effective way of discovering uniquely informative biomarkers. This breakthrough was made possible given the company’s development of its AI neural network for high throughput analysis (PiPTM) and enabling software that powers the proprietary Vista™ research product for over a dozen different oncology indications, including ovarian, renal, lung, liver, prostate, pancreas, nasopharyngeal, and colorectal cancer and several others.

Recently, it was utilized for the prediction of response to checkpoint-inhibitor treatment. Vista™’s application-specific disease classifier panels each consist of a limited number of glycopeptide signatures that provide highly targeted readouts with accuracy rates that the “one-size-fits-all” approaches pursued by others have so far generally failed to achieve.

“I’m thrilled and honored to join the executive leadership team at InterVenn. I’m humbled but inspired by the task of driving glycoproteomics as a new diagnostic nomenclature to stratify patients, classify disease, and spawn new medical innovation,” said John Leite, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer of InterVenn Biosciences.