Arix Bioscience, a global healthcare and life science company supporting medical innovation, announced that Iterum, a new Arix Group Business, has closed a Series B investment round raising $65 million.

Arix Bioscience led the raise which included new investors Advent Life Sciences, Domain Associates, Bay City Capital and Pivotal bioVenture Partners. All Iterum’s previous investors (Frazier Healthcare Partners, Canaan Partners, Sofinnova Ventures and New Leaf Venture Partners) also participated in the financing round. Arix Bioscience’s Mark Chin will join Iterum’s Board of Directors.

Iterum is developing sulopenem, a novel oral and intravenous antibiotic, known as a penem, for the treatment of Gram-negative multi-drug resistant infections. Sulopenem, with a safety and efficacy profile similar to other penems, has demonstrated broad-spectrum coverage, including Gram-negative pathogens, and has shown potent in-vitro activity against Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL) mutants of E. coli and K. pneumonia. These pathogens are the most commonly associated with our initial indications of interest: uncomplicated urinary tract infections, complicated urinary tract infections and complicated intra-abdominal infections (uUTI, cUTI and cIAI).

The proceeds of this financing will be used to complete a Phase 3 pivotal trial in uUTI and to advance the broader Phase 3 pivotal program. Trials are expected to begin in the first half of 2018 and Iterum plans to file an NDA with the FDA by year end 2019.

Iterum is led by a highly experienced team including CEO Corey Fishman and CSO Michael Dunne MD, both of whom were key executives at Durata, which developed the new antibiotic DALVANCE (dalbavancin), and which was acquired by Actavis in 2014 for up to $809m.

Joe Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of Arix Bioscience plc, commented: “Iterum has made great progress since its launch and we are very excited about its potential. We are privileged to join the company at this stage in its development and to help support the achievement of its goals.  Arix is delighted to have led this $65m funding round comprising many of the biotech sector’s leading specialist investors.  This is a significant deal for Arix, the first since our recent IPO, and one which further demonstrates the depth and quality of our pipeline.”