SiteOne Therapeutics Completes $1.5M Initial Round Of Equity Financing, Secures $1.4M National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- SiteOne Therapeutics Inc. today announced the completion of its initial round of equity financing. Led by Sears Capital Management and Biobrit LLC, with additional investors Mission Bay Capital and Joe Zakrzewski, the $1.5 million financing positions SiteOne to advance its oral NaV1.7 inhibitor program for pain and to further develop its technology platform for long-acting local analgesics, pain diagnostics and other pain indications.
In conjunction with the financing, Lowell Sears (Sears Capital Management) and Joe Zakrzewski will join SiteOne's board. Dan Bradbury (BioBrit LLC) and Doug Crawford (Mission Bay Capital) will serve as board observers.
"SiteOne's technology platform has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of acute and chronic pain," said Sears. "The company's unique proprietary approach to targeting NaV 1.7, combined with an experienced management team, made this a very attractive early-stage investment opportunity."
The company also announced the award of a $1.4 million, two-year, Phase II SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health in support of SiteOne's program to develop selective, oral inhibitors of NaV1.7 as therapeutics for acute and chronic pain.
"The financing and the NIH grant represent important milestones for SiteOne and are an acknowledgment of the value of our technology platform for optimizing highly selective NaV inhibitors for pain," said Stan E. Abel, the company's chief executive officer. "We are excited to have this group of investors and the NIH supporting the company and look forward to further developing our portfolio of therapeutic candidates for treating acute and chronic pain."
SiteOne's lead program is an oral, NaV1.7 inhibitor for the treatment of moderate to severe pain, representing a potentially safer and more effective treatment option to replace oral opioid analgesics. Because of the growing problems of overuse and abuse of current oral opioid analgesics, there is a significant unmet medical need for an effective non-addictive treatment for pain. NaV1.7 plays a critical role in the generation and conduction of pain signals and represents a potentially transformative approach to treating pain with non-opioid pain therapies.
About SiteOne Therapeutics
SiteOne Therapeutics, located in San Francisco, was founded with the goal of developing novel pain therapeutics and diagnostics to safely, effectively and efficiently treat acute and chronic pain without the limitations of existing pain therapies, such as NSAIDs or opioids. The company's therapeutic candidates are highly selective sodium ion channel 1.7 (NaV1.7) inhibitors based on naturally occurring small molecules. Given the critical role NaV1.7 plays in the generation and conduction of pain signals, combined with the urgent need for new, non-opioid pain therapies, SiteOne is focused on advancing its lead product for the treatment of moderate to severe pain. Additional opportunities with the company's technology include long-acting analgesics, PET imaging diagnostics for pain and other pain indications. SiteOne owns worldwide development and commercialization rights to its development programs through an exclusive license from Stanford University.
For more information, visit SiteOne's Web site at www.site1therapeutics.com.
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SOURCE SiteOne Therapeutics Inc.