Oxford Finance closed a $15 million senior secured term loan with Vedanta Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new category of therapies for immune-mediated diseases based on defined bacterial consortia. Vedanta will use the funds for general working capital and to advance the development pipeline.

Vedanta designs medicines based on consortia of human commensal bacteria to treat disease, using insights from microbial ecology, mucosal immunology and human interventional studies. Vedanta’s science has led to the creation of a platform to develop defined consortia manufactured from pure, clonal strains, eliminating the need to source donor material.

“Vedanta’s scientists have contributed foundational discoveries to the microbiome field,” Christopher A. Herr, senior managing director at Oxford Finance, said. “Oxford is pleased to provide the funds to support the company’s differentiated approach, which eliminates the need for donor material and eliminates the risk of passing pathogens to patients.”

Oxford Finance is a specialty finance firm providing senior secured loans to public and private life sciences and healthcare services companies.