Star Therapeutics, a South San Francisco biotech company that develops antibody drugs, has raised $200m in a private financing co-led by OrbiMed and Janus Henderson Investors. The company announced the round on 23 October 2026.
Agent Capital, Catalio Capital Management, Cormorant Asset Management, New Leaf Venture Partners, NYBC Ventures, RA Capital Management, Redmile, Sofinnova Investments and Soleus Capital also invested, along with a sovereign wealth fund that Star did not name. The company did not give the round a series letter or disclose a valuation.
Two exits in three months
The raise follows two large outcomes for companies Star created. In July 2026 the drugmaker Incyte bought Star's subsidiary Vega Therapeutics in a deal worth up to $2bn. Vega's lead drug, latarcibart, is an antibody in a Phase 3 trial for von Willebrand disease, an inherited bleeding disorder.
In September another Star spinout, Electra Therapeutics, began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker ETRA. BioPharma Dive reported that Electra's initial public offering raised $350m. Electra is developing a drug for secondary haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare and dangerous inflammatory condition.
According to BioPharma Dive, chief executive Adam Rosenthal said Incyte had more clinical and commercial resources to launch Vega's drug than Star did.
A reset, and a return to stealth
Star was formed around 2018 around experimental drugs for rare diseases, BioPharma Dive reported. In its early years it resembled hub-and-spoke biotech groups such as Roivant Sciences and PureTech Health, placing programmes in separately named subsidiaries. Rosenthal argued in 2022 that such spinouts could develop rare-disease drugs more effectively.
The company now wants a single identity. BioPharma Dive quoted Star as saying it wants "to be thought of as Star", and reported that Rosenthal called the new funding a "reset". Star said it will go back into stealth mode and has not said how many programmes it is running.
According to BioPharma Dive, the company plans to study experimental biologic drugs for blood and immune conditions and is looking for molecules that are hard for competitors to copy.
What the money is for
Star said the money will move its current preclinical programmes into clinical trials and add new programmes to its pipeline. It describes its goal as building best-in-disease therapies for patients with significant unmet need.
Rosenthal is the company's founder and chief executive. In the announcement, Carl Gordon, managing partner at OrbiMed, said he had worked with the Star team at three different companies. Vish Sridharan of Janus Henderson Investors said the firm does not often invest at this stage and will join Star's board as an observer.
Gordon said he believed Star had the team, the science and the pipeline for its next phase of growth. Neither investor disclosed how much it put in, and Star did not say how the $200m was split among the participants.
Crunchbase News listed the round among the ten largest venture deals of the week. Another biotech deal sat alongside it on that list: a $237m Series E for the New York AI drug developer Pathos AI, led by Bristol Myers Squibb.
Company website: star-therapeutics.com