Kallyope Inc., a company leveraging connections between the gut and brain to develop new medicines for diabetes, obesity and other diseases, has raised $236 million in series D financing to support its work. Readouts of early clinical data for its most advanced programs, phase I small molecules for metabolic disease and gut barrier conditions, will start to arrive later this year, company CEO and President Jay Galeota told BioWorld.
LONDON – Neuromuscular disease specialist NMD Pharma A/S has raised €35 million (US$39.7 million) in a new financing, as it awaits initial data from its first clinical trial, in the treatment of myasthenia gravis. The new money enables NMD to complete that phase IIa study and to launch another trial of the same compound, NMD-670, in spinal muscular atrophy. The Aarhus, Denmark-based company is preparing the IND and aims to treat the first patient before the end of 2022.
Curevo Vaccine Inc. closed on a $60 million series A financing designed to take the company through releasing top-line data for its phase IIb study of CRV-101 for treating shingles in older adults. That means taking on a blockbuster, Shingrix from Glaxosmithkline plc.
Arkuda Therapeutics Inc., a company targeting lysosomal dysfunction to address neurodegeneration, has completed a $64 million series B financing co-led by Cormorant Asset Management and Pivotal Bioventure Partners. The funds will help advance its lead program, a small-molecule progranulin enhancer for frontotemporal dementia in people with an autosomal dominant mutation in the GRN gene, which codes for the protein.
These days it’s nearly impossible to turn around in the biopharma world without hearing about how some company is going to use machine learning to revolutionize drug development. “It really is a catchphrase,” acknowledged Jo Viney, whose latest startup, Seismic Therapeutic Inc. launched with a $101 million series A round to advance a platform incorporating machine learning capabilities to find new drugs for autoimmune diseases.
Ventus Therapeutics Inc. closed a $140 million series C financing to continue scaling its platform to address previously undruggable targets. The company said it plans to advance programs targeting key modulators of the innate immune system and other therapies, including two targeting NLRP3 (NLR pyrin domain-containing 3) and one targeting cGAS, into the clinic. It plans to submit INDs for three programs in 2023.
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