Privately held Synchroneuron Inc. raised $6 million in a Series A financing from Morningside Ventures to advance a candidate targeting tardive dyskinesia (TD) and related movement disorders.

Waltham, Mass.-based Synchroneuron was founded by Barry Fogel, a neurologist and psychiatrist who serves as the company's chief scientific officer, along with the principals of Accellient Partners, a privately held drug development organization also based in Waltham.

Accellient partner and CEO William Kerns, who serves as Synchroneuron's interim CEO, is an entrepreneur whose resume in drug development includes tenure at Eisai Co. Ltd. and SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline plc), where Kerns helped to bring new compounds through investigational new drug-enabling programs, regulatory approvals and early clinical trials.

For now, Accellient will manage Synchroneuron as a virtual drug development company, with Fogel as Synchroneuron's only employee.

In his practice, Fogel said he had seen a number of patients with TD, which results from exposure to dopamine receptor-blocking drugs, including antipsychotics as well as drugs used to prevent nausea and vomiting. TD can develop in weeks to months, according to Fogel, causing often irreversible and disfiguring facial tics as well as involuntary movements of the body and limbs. At worst, the drugs convert psychiatric patients into neurology patients, he said, "because people become more disabled by the movement disorder than they were by the original psychiatric condition."

The FDA has no approved drugs designed to treat TD, so Fogel set about to fill that gap. First, he examined the underlying mechanism, discovering that "this is not about dopamine." Rather, TD is caused by an imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission, "causing oscillating loops in the brain that generate these movements," Fogel explained.

Next, Fogel searched for – and found – existing compounds with the ability to affect both glutamate and GABA transmission. One compound, in particular, was safe but poorly absorbed.

"In order to get a therapeutic effect, you had to give someone nine or 10 pills a day," he said. "That's not something patients can easily tolerate, particularly when they're on other medications."

With seed financing from family and friends, Fogel formed a company and applied for a number of patents with the goal of reformulating the active ingredient, which he declined to name. Although TD is the initial indication, the compound has potential applications in Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome and other movement disorders, he said.

In 2004, Fogel licensed the patents to a venture-funded pharmaceutical company to conduct the reformulation work. After three years on the back burner, the patents reverted to Fogel and he decided his own start-up would give the drug more attention and greater resources. An introduction to Kerns led to the interest by Accellient and the formation of Synchroneuron, whose name references the "synchronicity" in the drug's discovery as well as its synchronized action.

Since the compound has a well-established safety profile, the company expects to complete the reformulation work within several months and begin Phase I trials during the second half of 2012. A Phase IIa proof-of-concept study is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2013.

"If we have a superior formulation developed in the laboratory, getting an [investigational new drug application] and bringing it into the clinic to do some pharmacokinetic studies in human volunteers is very realistic," Fogel said.

The Series A should see Synchroneuron though the Phase IIa program, which is expected to report top-line data by the end of 2013, Kerns said. Long term, the company will consider whether to market an approved drug in-house or seek to license the compound following Phase II, he added.

Several other biotechs are seeking to exploit the relationship between GABA and glutamate. Third Rock start-up Sage Therapeutics, of Boston, raised $35 million last year to develop therapies for schizophrenia, depression, pain and traumatic brain injury based on modulation of GABA and glutamate neurotransmitters. (See BioWorld Today, Oct. 18, 2011.)

And Seaside Therapeutics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., is examining whether its investigational compound, STX209, may have efficacy against the core symptoms of Fragile X syndrome. The company hypothesizes that the pathologies of Fragile X and some autism spectrum disorders also are caused by excessive activation of glutamate receptors and an imbalance of excitatory to inhibitory neurotransmission in the brain. (See BioWorld Today, June 3, 2011.)

In other financing news:

• Spherix Inc., of Bethesda, Md., said it closed its $1.15 million public offering of common stock and warrants. The firm issued about 1.1 million shares priced at $1.08 each, plus warrants to purchase an additional 212,963 shares at an exercise price of $1.40 per share. Net proceeds are expected to support continued development of SPX-106T, as well as general development and commercialization efforts.

• Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp., of Lexington, Mass., sold 1.05 million additional shares in a fully exercised overallotment of its public offering, generating additional net proceeds of approximately $4.3 million. Jefferies & Co. Inc. acted as the sole book-running manager for the offering, with Canaccord Genuity Inc. and Roth Capital Partners LLC acting as co-managers.