Locate Bio Closes £10 million Funding Round

Funding to further advance Locate Bio’s regenerative medicine pipeline of orthobiologics
Locate Bio, an orthobiologics focused regenerative medicine company, is pleased to announce that it has raised an oversubscribed £10 million of equity investment in a funding round co-led by existing shareholder Mercia Asset Management and new investor BGF. The funding will be used to further advance Locate Bio’s proprietary pipeline of regenerative orthobiologics products towards patients, with key clinical and regulatory milestones expected to catalyse growth over the next two years.

The investment brings the total funds raised by Locate Bio to over £18 million. The company’s lead product in development is called LDGraft, and is a low dose, controlled release rhBMP-2 for the treatment of degenerative disc disease. In September 2020, Locate Bio in-licensed multiple late-stage orthobiologics assets from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences. The acquisition of these products significantly accelerated Locate Bio’s ambitions of building a world-leading, diversified orthobiologics company.

Locate Bio aims to develop a suite of best-in-class technologies that address the performance limitations of existing products and enable orthopaedic surgeons to improve the lives of people suffering from debilitating conditions. The company is making good progress against this objective and received two breakthrough device designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at the start of 2021 for CognitOss and Chondro3, a biomimetic graft for osteochondral lesions. CognitOss is a single-stage therapy that combines the local delivery of therapeutically appropriate levels of antibiotics from a ‘smart material’ that is designed to be responsive to the presence of infection and promote the regeneration of bone. It is designed to treat osteomyelitis, a debilitating inflammatory bone infection.

About Locate Bio
Locate Bio is an innovative orthobiologics company with a proprietary, regenerative medicine pipeline, delivering exciting orthobiologics products that have great disruptive potential.

Locate Bio’s ambition is to build a world-leading, orthobiologics business with a diversified suite of best-in-class technologies that address the performance limitations of existing products and enable orthopaedic surgeons to improve the lives of people suffering from debilitating conditions.

In September 2020, Locate Bio announced the acquisition of multiple late-stage complementary orthobiologics assets from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) University of Medicine and Health Sciences, accelerating its route to market and broadening its orthobiologics pipeline.

Locate’s portfolio now includes CertOss, a family of synthetic graft substitutes; CognitOss, a controlled and responsive release of antibiotics from a resorbable bone graft for the treatment of osteomyelitis; LDGraft a low dose, controlled-release rhBMP-2 spinal fusion product intended for the treatment of lower back pain caused by degenerative disc disease; and Chondro3, a three-layer biomimetic cartilage repair graft. The Company continues to look for partnering opportunities, both in-licencing or out-licencing that would further its aim of providing surgeons with a choice of best-in-class technologies and products that address the current challenges of existing products and meet specific patient-driven clinical needs.

Locate Bio is a spin-out from the University of Nottingham.