Novartis Venture Fund, the corporate venturing unit of drug producer Novartis, led a $28m series A round yesterday for Merganser Biotech, a US-based developer of treatments for rare blood-related diseases.
Venture capital firms Frazier Healthcare, Sutter Hill Ventures and Osage University Partners, as well as seed investors BioAdvance and Stateside Developments, also took part in the round.
Merganser is commercialising research by Tomas Ganz and Elizabeta Nemeth, professors at University of California, Los Angeles, the discoverers of hepcidin mimetic peptides.
The peptides have been shown in animal models to function as treatments for toxic iron overload that would otherwise lead to cardiac, liver or endocrine diseases.
Merganser will use the series A funding to develop the hepcidin mimetic peptides as therapeutics for rare haematological and iron overload disorders.