Aspect is one of a group of up-and-coming Vancouver-area companies leading a renaissance in the region’s life sciences sector and bent on establishing the West Coast city as a major player in the global pharmaceutical industry. Aspect Biosystems CEO Tamer Mohamed, left, and chief technology officer Simon Beyer pose for a photograph in Vancouver, on Oct. 8, 2021.DARRYL DYCK/The Globe and Mail
Aspect Biosystems Ltd., a Vancouver startup developing technology that can 3-D print live tissue implants, has raised US$115-million to help advance its novel treatments toward human trials.
The funding was led by Dimension Management LP., a U.S. investment firm that backs startups combining cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence with more traditional biopharma research methods.
“Aspect is the embodiment of the multidisciplinary companies that we believe will define the next chapter of biotech,” Dimension’s San Francisco-based managing partner, Nan Li, said in a statement.
Other investors in the round include earlier Canadian backers Radical Ventures, Pangaea Ventures, Rhino Ventures and Pallasite Ventures, as well as Breakthrough T1D – a U.S. non-profit that funds diabetes research – as well as the B.C. government’s InBC Investment Corp. and Novo Nordisk A/S, the Danish drug giant behind blockbuster weight-loss treatments Ozempic and Wegovy.
Novo, one of three firms that dominate the global insulin market, and Aspect signed a blockbuster development deal in 2023 giving the former an exclusive global licence to the B.C. startup’s technology to develop as many as four products to treat diabetes and/or obesity. The deal could be worth US$2.6-billion – as much as US$650-million per product – in milestone payments to Aspect, plus royalties on any Novo product sales that come out of the deal. Novo paid US$75-million up front to fund Aspect’s research and development and for an ownership stake.
Aspect has created its own 3-D printers to produce synthetic tissues composed of living cells derived from stem cells and hydrogel polymers. The tissues are meant to be implanted in people with impaired pancreases or livers – replacing, repairing or supplementing the functions of the organs within minutes once the circulatory system fuses into the material.
The 12-year-old multidisciplinary company, a University of British Columbia spinout, signed its deal with Novo after demonstrating its implants could treat diabetes in rodents, but it still has further preclinical R&D to do before it can test its creations in humans.
Aspect chief executive officer and co-founder Tamer Mohamed said the financing came together quickly last fall in a process that brought forward multiple bidders. “We’re quite fortunate for that, particularly against the backdrop of a very difficult market” for biotechnology companies, which remains challenging for fundraising more than three years into a downturn, he said.
Mr. Mohamed added that, even though Aspect was “in a strong position from a capital perspective, we felt it was the right time to put forward a round” to prepare for its transformation into a clinical-stage company conducting human trials. With the fresh capital, “we’re in a position where we can move several programs into the clinic over the next couple of years.”
Aspect is one of a group of up-and-coming Vancouver-area companies leading a renaissance in the region’s life sciences sector and bent on establishing the West Coast city as a major player in the global pharmaceutical industry.
Vancouver is already Canada’s fastest-growing biotech centre, home to several other promising life sciences companies, including AbCellera Biologics Inc., Acuitas Therapeutics Inc., Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Clarius Mobile Health Corp., Canary Medical Inc., Kardium Inc. and Stemcell Technologies Canada Inc., a leading supplier of media and tools for drug developers.
Last year the federal and B.C. governments agreed to provide $72.75-million to Aspect to fund a $200-million project that includes building its own manufacturing plant capable of producing materials for its clinical trials.
Other local companies have received significant public funding in recent years, including AbCellera, Stemcell and Precision Nanosystems. The province and Ottawa have also funded the expansion of AdMare Bioinnovations, a national biotechnology incubator headquartered at UBC. And B.C. is also funding the construction of a research hospital at the edge of False Creek Flats, a former industrial and railyard zone earmarked to become a life sciences centre.