GAITHERSBURG, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Viela Bio today announced the successful completion of a $75 million private placement of its Series B preferred stock, bringing the total capital raised since the Company's launch in February 2018 to more than $300 million. The financing round was led by HBM Healthcare Investments, and additional new investors participating included Viking Global Investors, Cormorant Asset Management, Terra Magnum Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs, and Barer & Son Capital. Existing investors participating included Temasek.

“We are pleased that our ongoing development of our clinical programs continues to attract capital from leading healthcare investors. This financing will support our upcoming regulatory milestone—the anticipated filing of our Biologics License Application with the U.S. FDA for our lead product candidate, inebilizumab, for the treatment of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, or NMOSD,” said Bing Yao, Ph.D. Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “NMOSD is a severe, debilitating, and sometimes fatal neurological disease for which there is currently no approved treatment. While our priority is to serve this patient population through the successful approval and launch of inebilizumab, we believe this financing also puts us in a strong position to pursue additional new indications with inebilizumab. Furthermore, we believe this financing will allow us to advance the entirety of our clinical pipeline, which is comprised of several additional clinical candidates for a range of rare autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.”

About Viela Bio

Viela Bio, headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering and advancing treatments for severe inflammation and autoimmune diseases by selectively targeting shared critical pathways that are the root cause of disease.

For more information, please visit www.vielabio.com.