RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Locus Biosciences has raised more than $10.5 million in equity funding from three investors, and the gene editing company could raise an additional $9 million more, according to an SEC filing.

And more funding is coming, the company told WRAL TechWire on Monday.

“Locus has filed the necessary paperwork and the fundraising is ongoing,” a spokesperson told WRAL TechWire, noting that additional information would be announced by the company “in the coming weeks once the process complete.”

The company’s filing, dated Monday, notes that the first confirmed sale of equity occurred in late January.  The total offering amount is listed as $19,983,396 with $10,569,989 sold to the three investors noted in the filing.  That leaves $9,413,407 remaining that could be raised by the company, according to the filing.

Locus Biosciences co-founder and CEO Paul Garofolo told WRAL TechWire in December that there was a “revolution” coming in medicine.

“We are evolving from the days where we discovered small molecules that produced a favorable result in a large number of patients, likely with some level of side effects, to precision medicines that directly address the problem for the intended patient,” Garofolo told WRAL TechWire in December.  “It started with antibodies and other biologic therapies that revolutionized Oncology and Immunological diseases. It is moving towards cell and gene therapies where the technology is proving itself in ultrarare diseases, and much like their predecessor technologies, will move toward more broad-based applications over time.”

In December, Garofolo told WRAL TechWire that the company was planning for further growth in 2022, including hiring some 25 employees, which would put headcount at some 100 workers.  At the time, the company had recently landed a $25 million credit facility which the company said would “expand the company’s in-house manufacturing capabilities and drug discovery program.”

Inside Locus Biosciences’ $25M capital plan: What startup plans to do

Prior funding

WRAL TechWire also published a North Carolina Biotechnology Center story on what the firm could do with the $25 million credit facility, which noted that the funding could assist the company develop “a new class of precision-engineered bacteriophage treatments for a wide range of bacterial and inflammatory illnesses.”

The therapeutic areas of focus?  Infectious disease, immunology, and oncology.

According to prior WRAL TechWire reporting, the company raised an additional $7 million in late 2020, upping the total available capital raised in that funding round to $20 million, which consisted of all debt, according to an amended SEC filing.

The company also inked deals that could be worth nearly $1 billion during 2020, including an $818 million deal with Johnson & Johnson, along with a $144 million contract with BARDA and a $12.5 million deal with global nonprofit CARB-X.

The technology came from student research at North Carolina State University, later expanded by the company’s researchers, including Garofolo.  The company received support from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to the tune of $830,000 in convertible notes, Garofolo told WRAL TechWire in November 2020.

Gene editing success could turn Triangle startup Locus Biosciences into a billion dollar unicorn