mbiomics has completed the third and final tranche of its Series A funding round, raising €12 million to build its own manufacturing facilities for complex microbial products. This brings the total Series A funding to €30 million, with continued support from existing investors MIG Fonds and Bayern Kapital.
Dr. Laura Figulla, Dr. Markus Rinecker, and Dr. Johannes B. Woehrstein founded mbiomics in Munich in 2020 to develop live biotherapeutic products for serious and chronic illnesses. The company is working to close the gap between early-stage research and large-scale pharmaceutical production.
The Series A funding was split into three parts to cover the investment required to build mbiomics’ own manufacturing facilities for complex microbial products. With this third closing, the infrastructure phase is now complete.
Faecal microbiota transplants, or FMT, have proven effective in clinical settings and have shown that changing the microbiome can be a useful treatment strategy. Still, FMTs are inconsistent, hard to scale up, and are facing more regulatory challenges.
mbiomics has developed its own platform that uses AI, machine learning, advanced analytics, large-scale co-cultivation, and high-throughput screening to design complex microbial consortia. Its lead candidate, MBX-116, is being developed as a co-therapy for patients with second-line melanoma receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors, a group in which response rates are low, but the microbiome’s role in the immune system is well known.
Besides melanoma, mbiomics is also working on treatments for autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases, which are getting more attention as research into the gut-brain and gut-immune connections advances.
Some of the main competitors in live biotherapeutics are Vedanta Biosciences, Enterome, and 4D Molecular Therapeutics. In cancer microbiome therapies, Microbiotica and Synlogic are also active. However, the ability to scale up manufacturing remains the primary factor that sets mbiomics apart.
The new funding will be used for necessary studies, further development of GMP manufacturing, and preparation for clinical trials of MBX-116 as a co-therapy for advanced melanoma. A Phase 1B study is expected in 2027.
