US-based neurodegenerative disease medicine developer Arkuda Therapeutics has completed a $44m series A round co-led by Pfizer Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, and venture capital firm Atlas Venture.
The round was filled out by life sciences-focused investment company BioInnovation Capital and unspecified funds managed by investment adviser firm Tekla Capital Management, which oversees H&Q Life Sciences Investors and H&Q Healthcare Investors.
Founded in 2018, Arkuda Therapeutics is working on drug therapies for neurodegenerative disorders that boost the central nervous system’s supply of the secreted growth factor progranulin.
Progranulin deficiencies are linked in neurogenerative disorders to diminished lysosomal function, where defects in waste-disposing lysosome organelles cause toxic materials to accumulate, prompting the deterioration of neuronal structures.
Arkuda’s initial candidate is aimed at a form of dementia – GRN-related frontotemporal dementia (FTD) – that afflicts people aged from 45 to 65 possessing mutations in the GRN gene, an encoder of progranulin.
The disease causes rapid nerve cell loss in the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes, curtailing the typical patient’s remaining life expectancy to six or seven years, progressively altering their personality, behaviour, language, memory and movement.
Arkuda Therapeutics was incubated by Atlas Venture, which also supplied a previously unannounced seed sum at an unspecified date.