By Sneha S K

March 21 (Reuters) - Mirador Therapeutics said on

Thursday it had secured more than $400 million to develop

precision medicines for immune-related diseases, in a rare,

large early-stage fundraise.

Easing inflationary pressures, increasing bets of a soft

landing and promising data from drug trials are starting to

boost the biotech funding market, which saw a downturn last year

along with other industries.

In 2023, venture capital deal value in the U.S. biopharma

industry stood at $18.4 billion, nearly 25% lower than the year

before, according to PitchBook.

"This is one of the largest series A rounds, probably in

history, certainly this year," Mirador CEO and founder Mark

McKenna said, without disclosing the valuation at which the

funds were raised or the breakdown of the amounts raised in the

latest two rounds.

The rounds, which included seed funding, were led by venture

capital firm ARCH Venture Partners, and other prominent

investors such as healthcare-focused firm OrbiMed and Sanofi's

venture capital arm.

"The $400 million we raised will allow us to advance

multiple internal development programs into the clinic. We have

cash runway for many years," McKenna said.

Mirador is focusing on skin, lung and gastrointestinal

diseases, and would seek the U.S. drug regulator's approval to

begin human testing of the therapies in the coming quarters,

McKenna said.

McKenna was previously the chief of Prometheus Biosciences,

a biotech firm Merck ( MRK ) bought for about $10.8 billion in

2023. Several other Mirador executives also came from

Prometheus.

Mirador's drug discovery platform, called Mirador360, uses

patients' genetics or molecular profile to create potential

therapies that take into account differences in people's genes,

environments and lifestyles.

"Every one of the programs that we go after has to have a

genetic association to the disease, and through our data set and

machine learning, we can develop precision medicine strategies,"

McKenna said.

(Reporting by Sneha S K in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini

Ganguli)