Mind-NRG secures Series A financing from Index Ventures
Company developing disease modifying compounds for CNS disorders
27th October, 2010 - London and Geneva: - Index Ventures, a leading venture capital firm, today announced the incorporation and Series A financing of Mind-NRG. The new Company, based in Switzerland, is devoted to the development of NRG-101, a peptidic neurotrophic factor with disease modifying potential that crosses the blood-brain barrier by a receptor-mediated transport to reach its target. Index Ventures has allocated up to €10m to Mind-NRG, with €1.5m invested at the start to generate further key data.
NRG-101 will be developed to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Mind-NRG will initially focus on conducting pivotal in vitro and in vivo experiments to further explore the mechanism of action of the peptide and to assess the activity of NRG-101 in a variety of relevant disease models.
Michèle Ollier, partner at Index Ventures and Chairman of the new company commented: "The investment into Mind-NRG is based on the asset-centric model that Index Ventures has pioneered, in line with our focus on highly innovative, science driven therapeutic projects."
ProteoSys - a Mainz, Germany based research company, focused on proteomics and system biology - has developed and validated NRG-101 over the last years and has assigned NRG-101 to Mind-NRG in exchange for equity in the newly formed company. "We are very excited to have formed such a strong team in order to exploit the potential of NRG-101" said Helmut Matthies, CEO of ProteoSys.
Professor Peter Jenner, world-class expert in Parkinson's disease models at Kings College London and adviser to Index Ventures said:
"The preliminary experiments with NRG-101 in relevant pre-clinical models of neurodegeneration show unprecedented results in cognition improvement and restoration of the neural architecture. I was very impressed with these."
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About Index Ventures:
Index Ventures is a leading global venture capital firm active in technology venture investing since 1996. The firm is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurial teams in the Information Technology, Clean Technology and Life Science sectors build their companies into market defining global leaders. The firm has offices in Geneva, London and Jersey and focuses on investments from seed through growth stage companies. Past and present portfolio companies include Addex Pharma, Aegerion, Cellzome, Funxional Therapeutics, Genmab, Micromet, Molecular Partners, PanGenetics and NormOxys, For more information, please visit www.indexventures.com<http://www.indexventures.com>
About ProteoSys:
ProteoSys AG in Mainz (www.proteosys.com<http://www.proteosys.com>) is a research company with a focus on systems biology, employing proprietary technology platforms for integrating quantitative proteomic and cellular information. ProteoSys has successful projects on prostate cancer detection, neurodegenerative diseases, and test systems for embryo toxicity, and ProteoSys has built up a portfolio of intellectual property, which led to license agreements with partners in diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries.