Refractory gout is a condition characterised by intense joint inflammation due to high uric acid levels. Credit: Doucefleur / Shutterstock.

GRO Biosciences (GRObio) has secured $60.3m in an oversubscribed Series B financing round to progress the clinical development of its lead programme for gout.

New investors Atlas Venture and Access Biotechnology jointly lead the round with participation from Leaps by Bayer, Redmile Group, Digitalis Ventures and Innovation Endeavors.

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The latest financing brings the total capital raised by GRObio to $90m.

The funding will be instrumental in advancing the company’s lead programme, progly-uricase, into clinical trials for the treatment of refractory gout.

Additionally, the investment will support the expansion of GRObio’s platform, which utilises genomically recoded organisms for the scalable production of therapeutics.

Atlas Venture partner Kevin Bitterman and Access Biotechnology managing director Dan Becker have joined the board of GRObio.

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GRObio focuses on the development of progly-uricase for patients suffering from severe, refractory gout, a condition characterised by intense joint inflammation due to high uric acid levels.

The current treatment option for patients unresponsive to conventional therapies is a uricase enzyme, which helps dissolve uric acid crystals and lower circulating uric acid.

But the effectiveness of this treatment is limited by the rapid development of anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) in most patients, which neutralise the enzyme.

Progly-uricase, a uricase enzyme, incorporates non-standard amino acids (NSAAs) designed to prevent ADA emergence.

This innovative approach aims to provide long-term effective serum uric acid control for patients with severe gout.

The Series B funding demonstrates the clinical efficacy of progly-uricase in human subjects with elevated uric acid levels.

GRObio CEO Dan Mandell said: “Having proved our therapeutic approach preclinically and demonstrated the scalability of our GRO platform, we have assembled the ideal team to advance GRObio to a clinical-stage company.

“This financing enables us to acquire valuable clinical efficacy data in gout, while expanding our platform to demonstrate the first scalable production of proteins with multiple NSAAs, including simultaneous incorporation of drug, immune recruitment and tissue-targeting payloads.”