CAMBRIDGE AND BOSTON, MA – December 19, 2018 – Pandion Therapeutics, a biotechnology platform company developing therapeutics to achieve localized immunomodulation to treat autoimmune and inflammatory disease, today announced it has received an investment from the JDRF T1D Fund. This financing will enable the company to launch a type 1 diabetes (T1D)-focused program leveraging its innovative technology platform and pipeline. Terms of the private financing were not disclosed.

JDRF T1D Fund is a venture philanthropy fund exclusively devoted to finding and funding the best type 1 diabetes commercial opportunities. This is their first investment in Pandion, which was founded in 2017. In addition to the JDRF T1D Fund, the company is funded by a strong syndicate of venture investors.

The investment from the JDRF T1D Fund will fund the evaluation of Pandion’s existing molecules for T1D, and in parallel initiate the development of islet-specific tethers to pair with Pandion’s existing immunomodulators for T1D specific drugs. The company’s bispecific platform combines a powerful immune therapy and a tissue tether to stop the autoimmune attack. For those living with T1D, especially children, tissue-targeted immune therapies demonstrate a significant opportunity to provide safer and more powerful chronic-use treatment options.

“Pandion is positioned to shift the paradigm for treating inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by developing therapeutic antibodies that act at the local site of disease, offering the potential for significantly improved therapeutic options beyond systemic immunosuppressive treatments”, said Anthony Coyle, Ph.D., President and CEO of Pandion Therapeutics. “While the initial focus of the company has been to develop treatments for inflammatory bowel disease as well as liver and kidney disorders, the investment in Pandion of capital and expertise by the JDRF T1D Fund will allow us to accelerate the development of new therapeutics for patients with T1D”, said Dr Coyle.
“We believe Pandion Therapeutics is uniquely positioned for success in the T1D space given their worldclass team and strong preliminary data in other autoimmune disease disorders that the company has seen through its preclinical work,” said Jonathan Behr, Ph.D., a Managing Director at the JDRF T1D Fund. “Tissue-targeted delivery has been a key area of focus for the Fund and we are excited to support the company as it seeks to develop islet-targeted immunotherapies for stronger and safer T1D drugs.”

Since launching in December 2016 with $32 million of seed funding from JDRF, the T1D Fund now manages approximately $70 million of committed capital. The Fund has invested in 12 innovative companies focused on developing life-changing solutions for T1D. Through these investments, the JDRF T1D Fund is demonstrating to donors and to venture, corporate and foundation capital sources that attractive, impactful investment opportunities exist in the T1D space.

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About Pandion Therapeutics

Pandion Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing a pipeline of antibody therapeutics to achieve localized immunomodulation for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and transplantation. The company’s proprietary technology platform enables the design of bispecific antibodies with targeting fragments that bind to specific tissues at the local site of inflammatory disease, coupled with effector molecules that modulate immune activity to restore immune homeostasis.

Pandion was founded in 2017 and closed a $58M Series A financing round in early 2018 with funding from Polaris Partners, Versant Ventures, Roche Venture Fund, SR One and BioInnovation Capital. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please visit www.pandiontx.com.

About JDRF T1D Fund

The JDRF T1D Fund (www.t1dfund.org) is a venture philanthropy fund accelerating life-changing solutions to treat, prevent and cure type 1 diabetes (T1D) through catalytic commercial investments. Through its investments in partnership with private capital, including venture capital, corporations and foundations, the T1D Fund seeks to attract the private investment necessary to advance drugs, devices, diagnostics, and vaccines into the hands of those living with T1D. The T1D Fund invests in areas strategically aligned with JDRF, the leading global organization funding T1D research, with an exclusive focus on supporting the best commercial opportunities. The T1D Fund will reinvest any realized gains into new investments to further its mission.