British biotech AstronauTx has completed a Series A funding round of £48m ($58.4m) to advance its neurodegenerative therapies portfolio, including Alzheimer’s disease therapy.
The London, UK-based startup was created by the specialist venture capitalist fund, Dementia Discovery Fund, with seed funding from the University College London Technology Fund and the UK Future Fund, in 2019.
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The Series A funding was led by Novartis Venture Fund and included investments by Bristol Myers Squibb, Brandon Capital, Dementia Discovery Fund, and others.
The funding will advance AstronauTx’s portfolio of small-molecule drugs, including a lead program in Alzheimer’s therapy. These drugs are expected to provide both symptomatic and disease-modifying benefits.
GlobalData forecasts the Alzheimer’s market to generate $13.7bn in sales across the eight major markets (US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, and China). In July, Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi (lecanemab-irmb) was approved for treating Alzheimer’s in the US. The monoclonal antibody has since been approved in other countries.
GlobalData is the parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology.
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By GlobalDataThe Series A is not the first funding news of the year for the company. In September, AstronauTx received funding for a preclinical program from the Innovate UK grant. In July, the UK-based company also partnered with a Danish biotech, Saniona, to identify new undisclosed ion channel target therapies.
As per the agreement, Saniona will be entitled to up to SEK 1.9bn ($172.5m) in milestone-based payments along with royalties on global sales for the therapies developed as part of the collaboration. The Danish company will also receive SEK 15m ($1.36m) in research funding during the first year of the partnership.
“We now know that the processes causing Alzheimer’s and other similar diseases are modifiable,” said AstronauTx co-founder, Dr. Ruth McKernan.
“Our treatments will be oral drugs, applicable across multiple neurodegenerative conditions, and additive with mechanisms that are currently in late-stage development.”
