Monte Rosa closes $95 million series C round

Monte Rosa was launched from founding investor Versant Ventures’ Ridgeline Discovery Engine based in Basel and is active in both Boston and Basel. With the core focus on discovering and developing molecular glues to degrade disease-causing proteins, the company has created a platform to rationally design small molecules that reprogram ubiquitin ligases to eliminate disease drivers previously deemed undruggable. Its drug discovery platform combines diverse and proprietary chemical libraries of small molecule protein degraders with in-house proteomics, structural biology, machine learning-based target selection and computational chemistry capabilities to predict and obtain protein degradation profiles. 

“By leveraging the power of nature’s protein degradation pathways, our next-generation approach is purpose-built to target the undruggable proteome and eliminate disease-driving proteins with high precision,” said Markus Warmuth, CEO of Monte Rosa.

The company has secured fresh capital following the closing of its series C round. The proceeds will be used to advance its lead development candidate into the clinic this year, accelerate pipeline growth and bolster its platform capabilities to rationally design and develop small molecule degraders (also known as molecular glues) that hijack the body’s innate ability to degrade proteins.

The financing was led by Avoro Capital Advisors with participation from additional new investors Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and RTW Investments, LP. Monte Rosa’s founding investor Versant Ventures participated in the round, as did additional existing investors New Enterprise Associates, Aisling Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, HBM Healthcare Investments, GV, Amzak Health, Sixty Degree Capital, Casdin Capital and Cambridge Asset Management. Monte Rosa is headquartered in Boston, Mass., with research operations in both Boston and Basel, Switzerland.

“Molecular glue degraders represent a powerful and differentiated approach to eradicating disease-causing proteins,” said Behzad Aghazadeh, Managing Partner, Avoro Capital Advisors. “Coupled with Monte Rosa’s world-class team and drug discovery platform enabled by their machine learning-based prediction of degrons, the company is poised to rapidly expand the previously undruggable target universe and foster a new generation of therapeutics.”

(Press release / RAN)