Thrasos Therapeutics, a Canada-based drug developer focused on acute kidney injuries, has raised $35m from a consortium led by drugs company GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) corporate venturing unit.
SR One’s commitment came from its GSK Canada Life Sciences Innovation Fund set up at the end of last year.
Jens Eckstein, president of SR One, said: “Thrasos’ lead therapeutic program for acute kidney injury [THR-184] has demostrated strong potential in preliminary studies.”
GSK was joined by investment group SW Company as a repeat investor and new syndicate members: venture capital firms Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV), Fonds de solidarité FTQ (which invests for the province of Quebec in Canada), Lumira Capital and Pappas Ventures and MP Healthcare Venture Management, the jointly-owned corporate venturing subsidiary of Japan-based Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation (MTPC) and its parent company, Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (MCHC).
Lumira, in turn, is backed by Quebec funds-of-venture-funds manager Teralys, which has, spearately, invested $15m in Iris Capital to open an office in the province where its deals have been done by Alexander Wiedmer, partner.
At the end of 2007, Thrasos’s regulatory filing disclosed it had raised nearly $10m of a planned $22.5m round.