US-based pharmaceutical company Annexon Bioscience has closed a $34m series A-1 round led by Novartis Venture Funds, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical company Novartis.
Satter Investment Management and Clarus Ventures also participated in the round. Annexon previously raised $1m in a 2011 seed round from Fidelity Biosciences Research Initiative.
Annexon will use the funding to support development of Anx005, its lead drug candidate, which is being developed to treat neurodegenerative and autoimmune disorders. Anx005 is intended to block nerve cell loss, the root cause of conditions such as Huntington’s disease.
Launched in 2011, the company is a spin-out of Stanford University’s School of Medicine, based on research by neurobiology professor Ben Barres.
Campbell Murray, managing director at Novartis Venture Funds, said: “Annexon has what we believe to be a uniquely elegant approach to neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases.”