Spain-based vascular calcification medicine developer Sanifit closed a €55.2m ($62.8m) series D round on Wednesday featuring Lundbeckfonden Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical firm Lundbeck.
The round was led by Caixa Capital Risc, the venture capital vehicle for financial services firm La Caixa, and also featured Columbus Venture Partners, Alta Life Sciences, Ysios Capital, HealthEquity, Forbion Capital Partners, Gilde Healthcare, Andera Partners and unnamed private investors.
The company claims the round is the largest ever to be raised by a Spain-based biotech company, and it was secured alongside the capitalisation of $19.3m in convertible bonds.
Founded in 2007 as a spinout of University of the Balearic Islands, Sanifit is working on a drug candidate, codenamed SNF472, for the treatment of calciphylaxis: a rare cardiovascular condition characterised by calcium deposits in skin and fat tissue that obstruct blood flow.
Proceeds from the round will facilitate accelerated development of SNF472, which met its primary and secondary objectives during phase 2 clinical testing.
SNF472 is currently in a phase 2b proof-of-concept study evaluating its effect on calciphylaxis progression in haemodialysis patients, that is due to read out in the fourth quarter of 2019. Sanifit plans to begin phase 3 studies for the candidate in Europe and the US around the same time.
Guy Paul Nohra, founder of Alta Life Sciences affiliate Alta Partners, will join Sanifit as a non-executive board director together with Damià Tormo, general partner at Columbus Venture Partners.
Sanifit said it has raised about $130m in equity funding, including $4.8m from a series B round in 2014 that was led by La Caixa and backed by HealthEquity, Somtobir, Nefrona Foundation and unnamed angel investors.
The company received $41m of series C funding the following year in a Ysios Capital-led round backed by Lundbeckfond Ventures, pharmaceutical firm Baxter Healthcare, La Caixa, Forbion Capital Partners, Gilde Healthcare and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners. Sanifit has not announced details of its series A round.