DermBiont Raises $28 Million and Acquires Chromaderm to Expand Targeted Topical Therapeutics in Development

Company's Drug Pipeline Now Includes Treatment of Skin Hyperpigmentation Disorders, Including Melasma and Solar Lentigos, in Addition to Seborrheic Keratosis, Atopic Dermatitis, Seborrheic Dermatitis, Onychomychosis, and Tinea Pedis.

Dr. Emma Taylor is Named Chief Medical Officer

Jeni Lee, Principal at Pivotal Life Sciences will join the DermBiont Board of Directors

DermBiont, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing targeted topical therapeutics that address the root causes of skin diseases, announced today that it has raised a $28 million Series A2 financing in parallel with the acquisition of clinical-stage biotechnology company Chromaderm, which is developing a topical inhibitor of melanin production as a first-in-class therapy for skin brightening, melasma, and other skin diseases associated with increased melanin production. As part of the transaction, Jeni Lee, Principal at Pivotal Life Sciences, joins DermBiont's Board of Directors. In addition to Pivotal Life Sciences, the round also includes participation from Viking Global Investors, Olive Tree Capital, Toba Capital, Civilization Ventures, and other biotechnology investors.

"We are excited to welcome Chromaderm and its team to DermBiont," said Dr. Karl Beutner, co-founder and CEO of DermBiont. "Chromaderm's topical small molecule drug in development is a great fit for the DermBiont portfolio, which is focused on targeted topical therapeutics for skin conditions with well-defined mechanisms of action."

Chromaderm's drug candidate, ruboxistaurin (SM-030), is an inhibitor of PKC-beta, which Chromaderm's co-founder Dr. Barbara Gilchrest demonstrated is required for melanin production. A completed Phase 1 clinical trial under a US IND demonstrated that a topical formulation of SM-030 is able to inhibit UV-induced melanin production. An oral formulation of ruboxistaurin has been evaluated in Phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials in unrelated indications and demonstrated an excellent safety profile. Excess melanin production is the root cause of a number of common skin diseases including melasma, solar lentigos (sunspots), and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. These disorders are most common in people of Hispanic, African, and Asian descent and primarily affect women; melasma affects approximately 5 million people in the United States, with a prevalence rate up to 40% in certain populations. Current treatments for these conditions have minimal efficacy, are not specific, and have significant safety concerns.

Dr. Emma Taylor has recently joined DermBiont as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Taylor, a board-certified dermatologist, was most recently founder and CEO of Naked Biome, where she successfully advanced the company's lead product through Phase 1 clinical trials and led the company through acquisition. Regarding Chromaderm, Dr. Taylor commented, "SM-030 has the potential to greatly improve patient's treatment options for these common skin conditions. Based on the excellent safety profile of oral ruboxistaurin and the promising Phase 1 results with our topical formulation, we look forward to starting Phase 2 clinical trials early in 2022."

"When we founded Chromaderm, our mission was to help people who suffer from common hyperpigmentation disorders but were underserved by available treatments, which are often unsafe and generally not well tolerated," said Mark de Souza, co-founder, President, and CEO of Chromaderm. "We are excited to join DermBiont in order to accelerate the development of our topical formulation of ruboxistaurin, the first and only targeted drug to treat skin hyperpigmentation, which we believe represents a safer and more efficacious approach than existing skin brightening agents."

"As long as dermatology has existed, most treatments of skin diseases have addressed the outward symptoms, with mixed results," said Jeni Lee, Principal, Pivotal Life Sciences. "I am optimistic about DermBiont's approach to targeting the root causes of skin diseases, and we are excited to help bring these synergistic companies together."

About DermBiont

DermBiont's mission is to become the world's leading precision dermatology company developing targeted topical therapeutics that treat, cure, and prevent diseases. The company aims to impact the root causes of skin diseases through the development of targeted small molecule therapeutics with well-defined mechanisms of action as well as with biotherapeutics that repair an imbalance of the microbiome. DermBiont's biotherapeutics discovery team leverages computational biology and a proprietary bioinformatics platform to identify clinically meaningful dysbiosis related to common skin diseases and mines a curated library of microbes to build a pipeline of products to treat identified dysbiosis across indications. For more information, please visit www.dermbiont.com.

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