Heartseed, a Japan-based developer of treatments for heart failure (HF), has secured ¥2.8bn ($25.8m) in series B funding from investors including corporates JMDC, Gene Techno Science, Astellas and Nippon Life.
Medical data technology provider JMDC and biopharmaceutical company Gene Techno Science invested directly while pharmaceutical firm Astellas, insurer Nippon Life and financial services firms SBI and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation took part through Astellas Venture Management, Nissay Capital, SBI Investment and SMBC Capital.
Founded in 2015, Heartseed is developing cardiomyocytes – the cells that make up the heart’s cardiac conduction system – from stem cells, with the aim of transplanting them into cardiac tissue to combat HF.
The funds will support the initiation of a phase 1/2 clinical trial for Heartseed’s lead product candidate, HS-001, in early 2020.
The company’s work is based on cardiac regenerative medicine developed by its co-founder and CEO, Prof. Keiichi Fukuda, at Keio University’s Department of Cardiology. It identified Astellas Venture Management as a series A investor but did not provide any further information concerning its earlier backing.
Fukuda said: “We are grateful for the support of our investors, which I believe is a reflection of their expectation and confidence that our lead pipeline HS-001 can be a curative therapy for severe HF, with the mechanism that transplanted ventricular-specific highly-purified cardiomyocytes engraft to patient’s heart and retain for a long-term.”
