Naurex, a US-based drug developer focused on psychiatry and neurology, has raised $18m in its series A round from a consortium including corporate venturing backing by healthcare providers H Lundbeck, Takeda Pharmaceutical and Shire.
Venture capital firms Adams Street Partners and Latterell Venture Partners co-led the round, and were joined by peers Druid BioVentures, Genesys Capital and PathoCapital, as well as the three corporations.
PathoCapital partner Wilbur (Bill) Gantz has become chairman of Naurex’s board, a newly created position. He was previously executive chairman of Ovation Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Lundbeck.
Lundbeck is majority owned by its eponymous foundation with an asset management subsidiary also running Lundbeckfond Ventures, an evergreen life science venture fund investing in companies primarily in Europe, but also in the US.
In January, Lundbeckfond Ventures and Shire, which started corporate venture investing earlier this year, were part of a consortium investing $25.5m in the C round for DBV Technologies. The Naurex investment is understood to have come from H Lundbeck rather than the Ventures unit, a deal source said.
In November, Japan-based drugs company Takeda Pharmaceutical rebranded its US-based corporate venturing group, Takeda Research Investment to Takeda Ventures.
Naurex was started in 2009 to develop therapies for depression and other central nervous system disorders based on the work of founder Joseph Moskal and colleagues now at The Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics at Northwestern University.