US-based slow-release drug developer Lyndra Therapeutics has completed a $60.5m series C round led by AIG Investments, an affiliate of insurance and financial services group American International Group.
Biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, contract drug manufacturer Yipinhong Pharmaceutical and Mass General Brigham Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of healthcare provider Mass General Brigham, also contributed to the funding.
The round also featured philanthropic venture capital fund Catalytic Impact Foundation, which invests in partnership with ImpactAssets, in addition to Polaris Partners, Invus, Quark Venture and Hopu Investments.
Lyndra is developing long-acting, extended-release therapies designed to provide consistent dosages of a drug from a single capsule, enabling patients to take a pill once every seven days or more, rather than daily.
The company’s product pipeline includes potential therapies ranging across a number of diseases including schizophrenia and other central nervous system (CNS) diseases, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and opioid use disorder.
The round has increased the company’s overall funding to nearly $250m, it said. The financing will support the advancement of Lyndra’s lead product candidate, LYN-005, a long-acting risperidone capsule for the treatment of schizophrenia, into pivotal clinical trials.
Lyndra also plans to expand its CNS asset pipeline and evaluate new global and public health opportunities alongside partners such as the philanthropic organisation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and through funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The company closed a $55m series B round in January 2019 backed by Gilead Sciences, insurance firm Orient Life, care provider Partners Healthcare, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Hopu Investments, Invus Opportunities, GF Securities, Polaris Partners, Quark Venture, Yonghua Capital, Healthlink Capital and Suffolk Equity.
The series B round came after Lyndra raised $23m in a 2017 series A round led by Polaris Partners with backing from Partners Healthcare, GF Securities, Quark Venture, Yonghua Capital, Healthlink and Suffolk Equity.