Date: 2011-12-06
Type of information: Fundraising
Company: TopiVert (UK)
Investors:
Amount: £8 million (€9.3 million)
Funding type: financing round
Planned used: TopiVert is a new start-up company which will focus on developing topical medicines for inflammatory diseases of the eye and gut. The company has licensed NSKI (narrow spectrum kinase inhibitor) related intellectual property from RespiVert Ltd., a former Imperial Innovations portfolio company acquired by Janssen Biotech, Inc. in 2010, for TopiVert\\\'s exclusive use in discovering and developing NSKIs for inflammatory diseases of the eye and gut. NSKIs are small molecule compounds that block certain steroid sensitive (for example, allergen - induced inflammation) and steroid insensitive (for example, virus - induced inflammation) inflammatory pathways through inhibition of a narrow spectrum of kinase targets. Certain NSKI agents discovered by RespiVert exhibit potent anti-inflammatory activity in primary disease cells and tissues from patients with COPD and severe asthma.
Others: TopiVert will operate from the Imperial College Incubator, where RespiVert remains a tenant. Maina Bhaman, Director of Healthcare Investments at Innovations joins the board of TopiVert as Non-Executive Director.
Therapeutic area: Inflammatory diseases - Ophtalmological diseases - Allergic diseases - Respiratory diseases
