California Alzheimer’s startup TrueBinding raises more than $50M, lays off workers twice in June

TrueBinding, a California startup addressing Alzheimer’s from a different angle than most other biotechs, has secured more than $50 million in additional capital. But it’s also gone through two rounds of layoffs in recent weeks, according to LinkedIn posts.

The biotech sent in paperwork on a $57.7 million raise this week, but the SEC filing outlines an originally targeted $78 million round. The company brought in 11 investors for the offering, which kicked off in March.

While the company reels in additional cash, just a year after a relatively under-the-radar nine-figure raise, it’s also been downsizing. Employees posted to LinkedIn in recent weeks, saying there have been two rounds of layoffs. A person familiar with the situation told Endpoints News there was no formal reason given for the “mass layoffs.”

A TrueBinding spokesperson and CEO Dongxu Sun did not respond to multiple Endpoints inquiries. The company had 75 employees as of Thursday, a 27% decline from this point last year, according to data from PitchBook.

TrueBinding, founded in 2016, has been quite mum on most financial details. It secured a $100 million round from unnamed investors last year. ShangBay Capital, a Palo Alto-based medical device, health tech and biotech VC firm, lists TrueBinding as one of its portfolio companies and is listed by PitchBook as an investor in last July’s nine-figure raise.

Dongxu Sun

In February, TrueBinding was granted an end-of-Phase II meeting with the FDA to discuss “a rapid pathway of TB006 in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease for accelerated approval.” While touting three-month open-label results in March, TrueBinding went as far to say it might be better than Leqembi, the anti-amyloid treatment from Eisai and Biogen that was granted full FDA approval on Thursday.

While Leqembi, Eli Lilly’s donanemab and other late-stage Alzheimer’s candidates try clearing the buildup of the undesired protein amyloid beta, TrueBinding hopes to block galectin-3, which drives neuroinflammation and serves as a glue for amyloid beta to form the toxic plaques. It hopes to apply that hypothesis to acute ischemic stroke as well. It has other antibodies in the discovery stage for cancer has previously has said Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and metabolic diseases are also on its radar.

Others in the galectin-3 space include fibrosis-focused biotechs Galecto and Galectin Therapeutics.

Formerly known as Immutics, TrueBinding is headquartered in Foster City, CA, down the block from the Gilead and Illumina offices. It has a nearby GMP facility in Hayward.

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