Santa Ana Bio Emerges From Stealth With Google Ventures Backing

<p><strong>ALAMEDA<&sol;strong> &&num;8211&semi;Santa Ana Bio&comma; a precision immunology company developing targeted therapies for patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases&comma; has emerged from stealth with &dollar;168 million in combined Series A and B funding&period; Founding investor Versant Ventures led the Series A round and was joined by TPG’s Life Science Innovations fund and GV &lpar;Google Ventures&rpar;&period; The &dollar;125 million Series B round was led by GV&comma; with participation from all existing investors as well as new investors Access Biotechnology&comma; Andreessen Horowitz &lpar;a16z&rpar; Bio &plus; Health and RTW&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The vast majority of biologics for autoimmune disease target cytokines&comma; which are the messengers but not the causal agents&period; Nor do these treatments discriminate diseased from healthy tissue&period; Santa Ana employs proteomic&comma; transcriptomic and genomic approaches to precisely characterize disease-specific subpopulations and identify targets only on disease-causing cell types leaving healthy cells unaffected&period; This approach addresses the shortcomings of current biological treatments&comma; including patient heterogeneity&comma; durability of response and safety&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Precision medicines offer the ability to target defined cell types and pathways to disrupt the pathogenic biology driving disease&comma;” said Peter Emtage&comma; Ph&period;D&period;&comma; CEO and board member of Santa Ana and a venture partner at Versant&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;By identifying pathogenic cell types and pathways&comma; and leveraging our deep protein engineering capabilities including monoclonal&comma; bi-specific antibodies and ADCs&comma; we aim to expand the reach of biologics to patients across numerous inflammatory diseases&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Dr&period; Emtage has more than 20 years of drug development experience in the fields of autoimmunity&comma; inflammation&comma; oncology and infectious diseases&period; He previously served as the global head of cell therapy research at Kite Pharma&comma; a Gilead company&period; Prior to that he was CSO at Cell Design Labs&comma; which was acquired by Gilead&comma; and VP of immune-mediated therapy at MedImmune&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Each of Santa Ana’s programs builds upon clinical precedent&comma; yet provides important differentiation from past approaches&comma;” said Jerel Davis&comma; Ph&period;D&period;&comma; managing director at Versant and board chair of Santa Ana&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Given the breadth of these programs and pipeline&comma; Santa Ana clearly has optionality to advance these promising internal programs and to pursue partnerships&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We&&num;8217&semi;re thrilled to lead the Santa Ana Series B and support Peter and the team as they advance a pipeline of antibodies for autoimmune diseases&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Brendan Bulik-Sullivan&comma; Ph&period;D&period;&comma; a Santa Ana board member and general partner at GV&period; &&num;8220&semi;Peter is a preeminent expert in immunology and has brought together a distinguished group of scientific leaders to advance lead programs&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re impressed with the company’s rapid execution&comma; excellent preclinical data&comma; and progress during its stealth phase&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;