Biogen vet's new startup raises nine-figure round, moves to Watertown

A biotech startup led by former Biogen Inc. and Amgen Inc. executive Jo Viney is pushing into autoimmune diseases with the help of $121 million in new funds.

Seismic Therapeutic Inc., which emerged from stealth in February 2022, announced its Series B on Monday. It's easily one of the largest venture capital raises of the year amid a tough market for young biotechs.

Bessemer Venture Partners led the round. The venture arm of Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN), where Viney once led inflammation research, joined in, as did Codon Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, Gaingels, GC&H, Lightspeed Venture Partners, serial entrepreneur Timothy Springer, Polaris Partners, Boxer Capital, Google's GV and Samsara BioCapital.

Over the last 22 months, Seismic has made significant progress, Viney said. The startup originally set out to see if the same machine learning tools that have begun to speed up development of small molecules could be applied to biologics, a different class of drugs derived from living cells rather than being chemically engineered. That experiment, she said, has been a success.

"It's turned out that the machine learning has really been a wonderful tool," Viney said. "This round is about getting us through that next major milestone as a company."

The $121 million will be used to finish up preclinical research, file paperwork with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin testing Seismic's drugs in humans, then begin Phase 1 trials in healthy volunteers to make sure the drugs work as expected before moving on to sick patients. Viney and her team hope to target autoimmune diseases, specifically those that are mediated by antibodies and that involve T-cells and B-cells — two types of cell that are important to immune responses. Those diseases could include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, myasthenia gravis and others.

Seismic has more than tripled in size since it emerged from stealth, going from 14 full-time employees to 47. Accordingly, the startup has outgrown its incubator space at LabCentral 238 in Cambridge's Kendall Square, where it's been based for the last few years.

Later this month, Seismic will move into a new, purpose-built lab space at 250 Arsenal St. in Watertown, the same city where Viney's last startup, Pandion Therapeutics Inc., was based. The startup will continue to grow; Viney plans to hire around a dozen people in the next couple of years to support the new clinical research.

"We're busting at the seams here in LabCentral," Viney said. "It's been great, but we're ready to move into our own space now."

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