July 9 Quick Takes: Novo-built Muna launches with $73M series A; plus Sigilon, bluebird, Vectura, BeiGene, Bayer and more

Launching with a $73 million series A round, small molecule neurodegeneration play Muna Therapeutics is based on technology from the labs of two professors: Simon Glerup from Denmark's Aarhus University, and Bart De Strooper from Belgium's VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain & Disease Research. The company was founded by Glerup in 2020 in collaboration with Novo Holdings' early-stage investment and company creation team Novo Seeds, and later combined with K5 Therapeutics B.V., co-founded by De Strooper. The series A round was co-led by Novo Holdings, Sofinnova Partners, Droia Ventures and LSP Dementia Fund, with participation from Polaris Partners, Polaris Innovation Fund, Sanofi Ventures, V-Bio Ventures and VIB. Muna uses its human target discovery and validation platform to identify molecular pathways in different human brain cell types that drive or protect from neurodegeneration, and discovers small molecule candidates using structural approaches, AI-based computational chemistry and cell-based screening.

Sigilon Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SGTX) fell 25% to $6.90 on Friday after announcing that FDA placed a clinical hold on a Phase I/II hemophilia A study of SIG-001, an immune-evading cell therapy that produces Factor VII, after a patient developed an immune response to the coagulation factor. FDA is investigating whether the inhibitors of Factor VIII developed by one of the first three patients treated in the study was related to treatment...