Vedanta Biosciences, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, has raised $50 million in equity funding to develop therapies targeting the interaction between the human microbiome and immune system. New investors include Rock Springs Capital, Invesco Asset Management and Health For Life Capital. The company's platform isolates specific strains of Clostridium bacteria from the human gut, which play crucial roles in developing regulatory T cells and maintaining intestinal barriers. Unlike traditional probiotics or faecal transplants, Vedanta's approach involves rationally designed bacterial combinations to treat infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions. The funding will advance clinical trials for the company's lead candidate for inflammatory bowel disease, expected to begin in the first half of 2017, and expand its technology platform across infectious diseases, inflammation and immuno-oncology applications.

About a year after that fundraise, a dip in manufacturing needs prompted Vedanta to lay off 24 employees.

VE303 is an orally administered, potential first-in-class live biotherapeutic product candidate being developed to prevent recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). CAMBRIDGE, MA, May 21, 2024 – Vedanta Biosciences, a clinical-stage company that is developing a potential new category of oral therapies based on defined bacterial consortia, today announced that the first patient has been dosed in the global Phase 3 RESTORATiVE303 clinical study. VE303 is an orally administered defined bacterial consortium candidate that is being developed for the prevention of recurrent C. difficile infection (rCDI). The RESTORATiVE303 trial is evaluating the efficacy and safety of VE303 in patients with rCDI and is intended to form the basis for a Biologics License Application (BLA) to be filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration