Bugworks Closes its Series B Round Worth $7.5 Million to Complete Phase-I of its GYROX Drug Candidate

Till date, the company has raised $19 million from three funding rounds, which includes a Venture Funding (undisclosed amount) round and Series A (9 million) round in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Bugworks Research, a global biopharmaceutical company, announces that it has successfully closed its Series B round worth $7.5 million led by University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC), Global Brain Corporation and Acquipharma Holdings, South Africa. The latest influx will enable Bugworks to complete Phase 1 studies for its GYROX series intravenous drug candidate and advance an Oral lead towards clinical development.

“This new financing is an endorsement of our team and differentiated AMR assets, as we bring reputed global investors to aid our mission of pandemic preparedness by defeating superbug infections” says Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO, Bugworks.

Commenting on their latest investment, Tomotaka Goji, Managing Partner & President, UTEC, says, “UTEC led the Bugworks Series A in 2018, as we identified Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the global issues of mankind, and facilitated Bugworks' collaboration with Japanese ecosystem. Bugworks has thoroughly impressed us with their scientific rigour, pre-clinical data, business development progress and commitment to saving lives. We are now proud to double-down our investment in Bugworks”.

Headquartered in Bangalore, Bugworks Research develops a class of antibiotics to tackle the problem of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). The company’s drug candidate GYROX is a dual-target gyrase-topoisomerase inhibitor and a novel broad-spectrum agent that targets critical bacterial infections implicated in serious hospital, community and biothreat indications. Till date, the company has raised $19 million from three funding rounds, which includes a Venture Funding (undisclosed amount) round and Series A (9 million) round in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

"As witnessed with COVID-19, infectious diseases are threatening human existence. AMR is a serious issue and Global Brain regards this as a big unmet medical need. We are proud to partner with Bugworks to bring highly differentiated solutions in AMR to the market. We consider India to be an important region, both from innovation and market perspective and are hence accelerating our investment activity in India," says Yasuhiko Yurimoto, Founder-CEO & General Partner, Global Brain Corporation.