Date: 2013-04-08
Type of information: Fundraising
Company: Canbex Therapeutics (UK)
Investors: Merck Serono Ventures (Germany) UCL Business (UK) the Wellcome Trust (UK)
Amount: £2.1 million (€2.45 million)
Funding type: financing round
Planned used:
Others: Canbex Therapeutics has completed a £2.1m ($3.2m) fundraising round that will enable the Company to complete the early development of its lead candidate VSN16R for the treatment of spasticity in multiple sclerosis (MS). Merck Serono Ventures, the venture capital arm of Merck Serono, led the financing for this round. Nilesh Kumar, Director of Merck Serono Ventures, will join the Canbex Board of Directors.
Canbex is a spin-out of University College London (UCL) and was founded by a leading scientific team including Professor David Baker and Professor David Selwood, later joined by Professor Gavin Giovannoni, a practicing MS clinician who is a global leader in MS drug development and clinical research. The company received a Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust in 2011 to support development of VSN16R.
In addition to Merck Serono Ventures, other participants in the financing round included UCL Business PLC (UCLB), the technology transfer company of UCL, and the Wellcome Trust, through the release of the remaining tranches of funding from the 2011 Translation Award.
Past investors in Canbex include Fast Forward, the commercial drug development arm of the US National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Bloomsbury Bio-Seed Fund and the venture capital fund Esperante SA.
Therapeutic area: Neurodegenerative diseases
