Limerick raises $15 million for cellular transport pump activators
This article was originally published in Scrip
Limerick BioPharma has raised $15 million in a series C financing led by OVP Venture Partners.
All existing institutional investors – ARCH Venture Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds and Altitude Funds – also participated.
OVP's managing director Chad Waite has joined Limerick's board of directors, while existing board member Dr Corey Goodman, former president of Pfizer's Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center and co-founder of Exelixis and Renovis, has been elected as the company's first chairman of the board.
Limerick is developing compounds that, when used adjunctively with existing drugs, aim to improve side-effect profiles and clinical outcomes. This is achieved through the activation of cellular transport pumps that redistribute drugs away from organs and tissues where they have adverse effects.
The company's pipeline contains cellular transport pump activator (CTPA) molecules applicable to a broad range of therapeutic drug classes including immunosuppressants, opioids, immunomodulators, selective oestrogen receptor modulators, and psychotropics.
Limerick is also developing novel compounds for monotherapy that target the treatment of metabolic diseases such as hypercholesterolemia and hyperglycaemia via a novel mechanism related to reverse cholesterol transport.
The US firm, which was set up in 2004, says it has clinical proof-of-concept data from its first generation CTPAs, but is now focusing on its second-generation programme, which is in preclinical testing.