Biotech startup Mynvax raises angel funding

Biotech startup Mynvax has raised an undisclosed amount of funds from a clutch of angel investors, as reported by VCCircle. Among other investors, Ajith Sukumaran, former Nokiaexecutive participated in the funding round.

The names of other investors and the quantum of investment remain undisclosed. Founded by Raghavan Varadarajan and Gautam Nadig in 2017, Mynvax is a biotech startup focused on developing vaccines for influenza. The startup was incubated at Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. It uses recombinant technology to develop next-generation influenza vaccines, that will be used to create broadly protective vaccines, which may not require annual updating.

Mynvax is looking to use this technology, in order develop vaccines rapidly, at large scale, and at low costs, to help save lives, during an epidemic. Mynvax’s founder Varadarajan is a biophysicist and a professor at Indian Institute of Science. While Nadig had co-founded another agricultural biotechnology startup Metahelix Life Sciences, later acquired by Rallis India Limited in 2010.

With the backing of a highly experienced team, Mynvax will be looking to capture the growing healthcare market in India. Influenza, an infectious disease caused by the influenza virus, is responsible for around 650,000 deaths across the globe, each year, according to a WHO report.

Ajith Sukumaran, said, “In developed countries, it is almost mandatory to take a flu vaccine every year but in populous countries like India and China, less than 1% of the population takes the vaccine”. Other players in the healthcare domain catering to the influenza vaccine market in India include Zydus Cadila, Sanofi Pasteur, and Abbott.

Ajith Sukumaran, a Harvard Business School and Cambridge University alumnus, has worked at Nokia as the Head of Strategy Planning. He primarily invests in startups focused on science and deeptech. He has invested in two other Indian startups, THB, engaged in the business of healthcare technology and analytic products and services, and Astrome Technologies, a space technology that aims to provide high-speed broadband internet from space.