Date: 2013-06-27
Type of information: Series B financing round
Company: Heptares Therapeutics (UK)
Investors: Stanley Family Foundation (SFF) (USA) Clarus Ventures (USA) Takeda Ventures (USA)
Amount: $21 million (€16.1 million)
Funding type: series B financing round
Planned used: The funds will be used to advance a clinical pipeline of novel drugs directed towards clinically validated targets for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases.
Others: * On June 27, 2013, Heptares Therapeutics has announced it has raised over $21 million in a Series B financing to advance a clinical pipeline of novel drugs directed towards clinically validated targets for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases. The financing round was co-led by the Stanley Family Foundation (SFF), one of the world’s leading neuroscience disease foundations, and current investor Clarus Ventures with Takeda Ventures also participating.
Heptares is preparing to initiate clinical development for its most advanced programme with a first-in-class selective M1 muscarinic receptor agonist later this year. Heptares has discovered multiple novel selective muscarinic agonists with a variety of pharmacological profiles, uniquely engineered using its StaR®-driven structure-based design approach, which represent first-in-class product candidates with significant commercial potential.
Heptares has also generated a broad pipeline of drug candidates, which are advancing towards the clinic for serious neurological diseases that target other historically undruggable or challenging GPCRs, including Adenosine A2A (multiple neuroscience indications), CGRP (severe migraine/headache disorders), Orexin 1 (addiction/compulsive disorders), dual Orexin 1/2 (chronic insomnia), and mGlu5 (autism, depression and dyskinesia). In addition, Heptares is pursuing novel oral small molecule projects that target GLP1 and GPR39 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, as well as working with leading pharmaceutical partners on small molecule and antibody discovery and development programmes in multiple therapeutic areas.
Therapeutic area: Mental diseases - Neurological diseases - Psychiatric diseases
