WINSTON-SALEM – Precise Bio, a regenerative medicine company, has raised more than $15.5 million in debt funding from 70 investors, according to an SEC filing.
The company aims to advance the use of “bio-printed tissues and organs” and says its technology is based on “innovative 4D bio-fabrication,” according to the company’s website.
According to the company, its technology platform will enable it to expand its “fabricated human cornea program concurrent with the development of other organs and tissues for use in ophthalmic indications.”
Beyond that, the company notes that the technology “overcomes multiple challenges in scalable, reproducible manufacturing of bio-printed tissues and organs.”
The company is led by CEO Aryeh Batt. According to the filing, Batt’s stated address is in Israel.
Batt delivered a presentation at Biomed 2021 in May 2021, and the video of the presentation is available on Youtube (and is embedded below).
Funding for development
The funding could also include a simple agreement for future equity, known as a SAFE, according to the filing. A note in the filing states that an estimated $700,000 of the funding will be used to pay salary to the company’s executive officers, and that the gross proceeds will be used to “fund development and other operating expenses.”
The round has been open since November 2018, and though the filing date is listed as February 9, 2022, the filing was signed by the company’s CFO in December 2021.
The minimum investment from any investor was $15,000, according to the filing.
With the deal, the company will pay more than $1.2 million in sales commissions to the Florida-based Nobel Capital. The filing notes that funding from foreign countries was considered, and that solicitations were made in 14 U.S. states including Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Winston-Salem a hotbed for regenerative medicine
Dr. Anthony Atala, the founding director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), is a co-founder of the company and is also listed among the company’s directors, according to the filing.
Atala was profiled by WRAL TechWire in a 2018 story about the work of WFIRM, and the “lung-on-a-chip” technology discussed in that article would attract a $24 million federal grant in 2019. Atala has previously been named one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology by Scientific American, among other accolades and awards.
In June 2021, two Wake Forest teams took first and second place in the NASA Vascular Tissue Challenge, a five-year challenge to develop lab-grown human tissue.
Also in June 2021, a partnership between WFIRM and the non-profit foundation RegenMed Development Organization (ReMDO), resulted in the launch of The RegeneratOR Test Bed, designed to advance the regenerative medicine ecosystem. In August, the organizations received a federal grant to spur jobs in the regenerative medicine industry.
Another Winston-Salem-based startup, ProKidney, announced in January that it would take the company public through a business combination with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, with an estimated value of $2.6 billion.
The company could not be reached for comment.
