One year after its splashy $500 million unveiling, Neumora Therapeutics is back with a series B to keep its multiprogram neuroscience pipeline moving toward and through the clinic. The series B syndicate has put up $112 million, a sum that is big by most standards but dwarfed by the biotech’s first round.
Neumora has raised around $650 million to date to test the idea that the precision medicine advances that have transformed oncology are now ready to redefine how neurological diseases are treated. As has happened in cancer, neuroscience could shift from a broad-brush approach that has lackluster outcomes because of patient heterogeneity to a more targeted paradigm that zeros in on likely responders.
Arch Venture Partners led the series A, which included a $100 million investment from Amgen. Both Arch and Amgen have returned for the series B, joining with fellow existing investors including F-Prime Capital and Invus and new backers such as Abu Dhabi Growth Fund to funnel $112 million into Neumora.
The money will support the development of a pipeline that is led by NMRA-140, a KOR antagonist in phase 2 development as a treatment for depression. Neumora completed a 204-patient phase 2a trial of the candidate in adults with major depressive disorder and symptoms of anhedonia, the inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities, over the summer.
Neumora has made some changes to its pipeline since it burst onto the scene one year ago. In February, the biotech struck a deal with Vanderbilt University to secure global rights to a M4 muscarinic receptor positive allosteric modulator program. The program, now called NMRA-M4R, is one of two projects that are closing in on the clinic.
The neuroscience startup has also removed two programs from its pipeline, including one that was listed as its third most advanced project at the time of the series A. One year ago, NMRA-094, a drug designed to treat sleep disorders by acting on histamine and serotonin receptors, was moving through preclinical. The candidate is now absent from Neumora’s publicly disclosed pipeline.
NMRA-094 is joined on the cutting-room floor by NMRA-GRIN2B, which Neumora previously listed as a discovery-stage treatment for neuropsychiatric disorders. The biotech is continuing to develop a therapy designed to act on GRIN2A.