Noema Pharma AG raised CHF103 million (US$110.3 million) in a series B round to continue moving forward its bulging pipeline of clinical stage assets in development for multiple central nervous system disorders. The Basel, Switzerland-based company is now funded through early 2025, by which time it will have at least some clinical data that will help it to determine its next steps.
Eli Lilly and Co., through its wholly owned subsidiary Prevail Therapeutics Inc., is delving more deeply into gene therapies. In a new collaboration, Prevail will use privately held Capsida Biotherapeutics Inc.’s adeno-associated virus engineering platform, coupling the tech with Prevail’s gene therapies to target causes of CNS diseases.
Emalex Biosciences Inc. closed an upsized and oversubscribed $250 million series D funding round intended to support a soon-to-start phase III trial and preparations for potential commercialization of ecopipam, its first-in-class drug for Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary motor and vocal tics.
Researchers led by Doron Merkler from the University of Geneva have shown how post local infection, a fraction of resting CD8+ tissue resident memory cells cross-reacted with antigens of the CNS to become subsequently activated and drive immunopathological responses in the CNS.
The hinge of the new development deal between Entos Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co. is also the core of Entos’ business: delivering a drug without significant toxicity. Development of the cargo is only part of the story in creating safe and effective medicine, Entos CEO John Lewis told BioWorld. “You have to have a safe and effective delivery system.”
Scineuro Pharmaceuticals, based in Shanghai and Philadelphia, launched with a $100 million series A financing to focus on tackling central nervous system diseases. CEO Min Li told BioWorld the startup is “building a CNS portfolio through a combination of internal R&D and strategic collaborations.” Lilly Asia Ventures Fund and Arch Venture Partners co-led the round.
Privately held Dyno Therapeutics Inc., an early stage biotech company applying artificial intelligence to gene therapy, entered a collaboration and license agreement with Spark Therapeutics Inc. that could bring Dyno milestone payments exceeding $1.8 billion.
A multi-institutional team of researchers has discovered that acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells metabolically adapt to the cerebrospinal fluid-filled CNS microenvironment upon migration from the bone marrow with alterations in fatty acid synthetic pathways.
Redpin Therapeutics Inc., of New York, plans to take its newly secured $15.5 million series A financing to continue developing its ion-channel based chemogenetics platform for addressing neural circuit dysfunctions such as epilepsy, neuropathic pain and Parkinson’s disease.
In late May, Novartis AG's Avexis Inc. unit gained FDA approval for Zolgensma (onasemnogene neparvovec) to treat spinal muscular atrophy, and other companies are looking to follow suit developing drugs to treat a variety of diseases of the central nervous system (CNS).
