Chicago-based start-up NeuroTherapeutics Pharma has snagged a hefty $43 million Series B from a group of top biotech venture groups, including the venture arms of a pair of Big Pharma companies. The money will fund development of the company's lead central nervous system drug through multiple proof-of-concept studies. And the company is boasting that it has a platform that can deliver drugs for a broad range of disease targets, from epilepsy to pain and other CNS conditions.
Fidelity Biosciences, MPM Capital and SR One, the venture arm of GlaxoSmithKline, co-led the transaction, with Pfizer jumping on board as well. Existing investors Novo Ventures and Thomas McNerney & Partners also participated in the round.
"In preclinical studies, the company has shown that its compounds have the potential to create new therapies for patients suffering from epilepsy, neuropathic and acute pain that significantly improve upon those that are currently available. This large investment in NTP speaks to that unmet need as well as to the company's potential to transform the marketplace by developing therapies that act in a new way," said NTP CEO Stephen Collins, MD, PhD.
According to NTP's website, Collins had been chief scientific officer and VP of clinical affairs of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, a CNS-focused biopharmaceutical company acquired by Lundbeck A/S for $900 million. The developer named the ubiquitous Corey Goodman, Pfizer's former biotech chief, to the board last October.
- here's NTP's press release