MALVERN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Promedior, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel biologic therapeutics for the treatment of fibroproliferative diseases, today announced that it has raised $21.5 million in a first closing of a Series D financing round. The financing was led by a new investor, Fibrotec Ventures, LLC, with participation from all of Promedior’s existing venture investors, including Morgenthaler Ventures, HealthCare Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Forbion Capital Partners and Easton Capital Investment Group. This new round of financing brings the total capital raised by Promedior to $62 million.
Proceeds from the financing will enable Promedior to broaden and advance its pipeline of Pentraxin-2 therapeutics. Promedior is expanding the clinical development of its lead drug candidate for rare systemic fibrotic diseases, PRM-151 (recombinant human Pentraxin-2 (rhPTX-2)), to include myelofibrosis, commencing with a Phase 2 clinical study expected to begin near the end of 2012. PRM-151 currently is being tested in a Phase 1b clinical study in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients to evaluate its safety, tolerability and biological activity on exploratory pharmacodynamic and prognostic biomarkers of IPF progression. The Series D financing also enables Promedior to accelerate the development of its lead drug candidate for ophthalmic indications, PRM-167 (rhPTX-2 variant for intravitreal injection), which is being developed for fibrovascular retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy and proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR).
“This successful financing further validates Promedior’s scientific platform and clinical progress, as well as the tremendous therapeutic potential of our new class of Pentraxin-2 therapeutics,” said Dominick C. Colangelo, President and Chief Executive Officer of Promedior. “Building on the success of our initial Phase 1 study, in which PRM-151 showed activity against biomarkers of disease in IPF patients, this financing allows us to aggressively advance the development of both PRM-151 and PRM-167 for patients who are in critical need of effective therapies for the treatment of fibrovascular diseases.”
Pentraxin-2 therapeutics have broad therapeutic potential across a variety of important unmet medical conditions, including rare systemic diseases, such as IPF and myelofibrosis, as well as fibrotic complications of diabetes and obesity, such as diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Promedior and its collaborators have demonstrated the therapeutic activity of Pentraxin-2 in numerous validated models of fibrotic and neovascular disease, confirming the potential of Pentraxin-2 therapeutics to treat fibrovascular diseases across all major tissue types, including lung, eye, kidney, heart, liver and several others. With a novel mechanism of action that is highly differentiated from other approaches to treat fibrosis, Promedior’s Pentraxin-2 therapeutics offer the potential to effectively reverse fibrotic disease processes and promote normal healing.
”We believe that Promedior’s platform has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of a number of serious fibrovascular diseases, including diseases for which there are no FDA-approved treatments. This financing will enable Promedior to build on its strong scientific and clinical platform and to further validate the clinical efficacy of Pentraxin-2 therapies for the treatment of fibrosis,” said Hanns A. Pielenz, President of Fibrotec Ventures, LLC. “We are very pleased to be joining this extraordinary team of management, advisors and investors, and we look forward to supporting the efforts of Promedior to bring successfully much needed therapeutics to patients with diseases such as myelofibrosis, IPF and retinal diseases.”
In connection with this financing, Mr. Pielenz will join the Board of Directors of Promedior, which is comprised of James W. Broderick, M.D., Chairman, and General Partner - Morgenthaler Ventures; Dominick C. Colangelo, President and CEO - Promedior, Inc.; John H. Friedman, Managing Partner - Easton Capital Investment Group; Paul D. Goldenheim, M.D., Former President - TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Geert-Jan Mulder, M.D., General Partner - Forbion Capital Partners; Amir Nashat, Ph.D., General Partner - Polaris Venture Partners; and Harold (Hal) R. Werner, General Partner - HealthCare Ventures.
About Promedior
Promedior is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a pipeline of novel Pentraxin-2 therapeutics for the treatment of fibrovascular diseases. Pentraxin-2 therapeutics treat fibrovascular diseases by naturally regulating monocyte-derived cells (macrophages and fibrocytes) that control the fibrotic process and drive pathologic neovascularization. Based on a unique mechanism of action, Pentraxin-2 localizes to sites of tissue damage and stimulates monocytes to differentiate into regulatory macrophages rather than pro-fibrotic macrophages and fibrocytes, thereby reversing inflammatory, fibrotic and neovascular processes and promoting normal healing. By acting upstream of these pathologic processes using a natural regulatory pathway, Pentraxin-2 therapeutics provide a superior therapeutic approach and an inherently safer profile. For additional information about Promedior, please visit http://www.promedior.com.
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