7TM Pharma Closes A Financing Round And Sells Certain Early Stage Discovery Assets And Technology To OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
The closing of a 15 MUSD financing
7TM Pharma has closed a financing round raising approximately 15 Million USD (75 Million DKK) from its current investors. This financing enables the company to continue maturing its pipeline targeting metabolic disorders and obesity, including TM30339, a Y4 selective agonist, and TM38837, a peripherally acting CB1 antagonist. TM38837 has been designed to be devoid of the central nervous system related side effects seen with previous centrally acting CB1 antagonists. The company is in the process of completing pre-clinical development of TM38837, which presented a strong effect on weight loss in animal models. The company plans to initiate Phase I clinical development shortly.
“7TM Pharma has a novel and very compelling pipeline of new treatments for obesity and metabolic disorders” says Mette Kirstine Agger, CEO of 7TM Pharma. “The strong financial support from our investors in tough financial markets shows their commitment to 7TM Pharma and our pipeline.”
Sale of early stage assets to OSI Pharmaceuticals
7TM Pharma and OSI(Prosidion), a wholly-owned U.K. subsidiary of OSI Pharmaceuticals, have entered into an agreement under which 7TM Pharma has sold certain early stage discovery assets and technology to OSI(Prosidion) as announced by OSI at the annual JP Morgan Conference in San Francisco, U.S.A. this week. As part of the agreement, 7TM Pharma will support OSI(Prosidion) in establishing the technology and knowhow at OSI(Prosidion). Mette Kirstine Agger, commented:“With this agreement, 7TM Pharma has once again demonstrated its ability to obtain considerable value from early stage assets based upon good science on interesting targets.”
“The sale of these early stage assets to OSI(Prosidion) allows 7TM Pharma to strategically focus on further development of our late stage discovery and development programs” says Mette Kirstine Agger. “The revenue from this agreement as well as the financing provides 7TM Pharma with a strong financial basis through to the end of 2010 which is very important in the current financial climate.”
About Obesity and related metabolic diseases
Obesity and related metabolic diseases are considered a very big health problem and a challenge to the industrialized world. Obesity significantly increases the risk of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and Type 2 diabetes and involves significant costs in the healthcare budgets. According to the WHO, there are more than 400 million clinically obese people worldwide – i.e. people with a BMI of more than 30 – and the number is growing fast. In spite of this, there are only few available therapies for obesity. These drugs have a limited effect and significant side effects, and there is consequently a large, unmet need for new and better therapies.
About 7TM Pharma
7TM Pharma is a biotech company focusing on discovery and development of drugs with a primary therapeutic focus on metabolic diseases, including obesity and cardiovascular diseases.
In recent years, the company has established a broad pipeline of research and development programs based on in-house drug discovery and development, and entered into several partnerships. The basis for 7TM Pharma’s drug discovery is a thorough and comprehensive knowledge about 7TM receptors including their structure, function and pharmacology which the company uses in the design of new candidate drugs. 7TM’s investors include Novo A/S, Alta Partners, LD Pensions, Index Ventures, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Dansk Innovationsinvestering, Sofinnova Capital, Healthcare Private Equity Limited Partnership, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie, SR One, Global Life Science Ventures, Baker/Tisch Investments, Credit Agricole Private Equity, GIMV and BioMedinvest AG. For more information on 7TM Pharma, please visit www.7tm.com.