After raising a Series A round worth $13 million right as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, biomanufacturing specialist NTx is adding more cash to its coffers.
With a new $47.5 million Series B round, NTx (also known as Nature's Toolbox) plans to advance and distribute its "next generation platforms" to produce vaccines, mRNA therapeutics and more.
Based in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, NTx is developing biomanufacturing platforms that can deliver future medicines "in a more rapid, accessible, and sustainable way," CEO Jamie Coffin said in the company's Thursday release. The company notes that supply chain challenges have "slowed progress and increased costs" for newer vaccines and biologics.
For its part, NTx touts its NTxscribe platform as a "cell-free, true continuous flow" system that can deliver "scalable RNA materials in a small footprint." The company also is working on NTxpress, a "fully recombinant cell-free expression system."
These technologies can come into play for projects ranging from small-scale drug discovery to commercial production, NTx says on its website. Already, the NTxscribe platform is being used in R&D labs and under a "vaccines-on-demand" contract with the United States' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
With the Series B funding, NTx plans to speed the development of the platforms "into commercially available solutions" with a variety of applications in the biopharma industry and beyond.
RA Capital Management led the funding round, with Series A investor Anzu Partners also joining in. NTx's "long-standing investor" BlueStone Venture Partners also participated.
“Having low cost of goods is critical to unlocking the full societal value of any novel modality, and NTx has cracked the code for dramatically reducing the cost and scalability of producing mRNA,” Peter Kolchinsky, Ph.D., Managing Partner at RA Capital Management, said in a statement.