US-based metabolic disease drug developer Metacrine has completed a $22m series B round that included Alexandria Venture Investments, the venture capital arm of life sciences real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led the round, which included fellow venture capital firms Arch Venture Partners, Polaris Partners and VenBio, and which took Metacrine’s total funding to about $60m, the company said.
The latter three had joined investment advisory firm EcoR1 Capital to invest in Metacrine as part of a round that closed at $37.8m in November 2016, according to a securities filing.
Founded in 2015, Metacrine is working on drug treatments for metabolic as well as liver and gastrointestinal diseases.
The company’s therapies will target a nuclear hormone receptor called the Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR) to combat liver-related diseases like primary biliary cholangitis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), the latter of which currently affects between 10 and 15 million Americans.
The funds will be used to advance Metacrine’s lead product candidate, an FXR antagonist called MET409, into late-stage studies intended to support an investigational new drug application. NEA partner Carol Gallagher will join the company’s board of directors.
Ken Song, president and chief executive of Metacrine, said: “NASH represents one of the largest unmet medical needs in medicine today.
“We believe FXR is a compelling NASH target and that our program addresses the gaps in delivering a best-in-class molecule. In addition to NASH, we have outlined a strategy to pursue FXR in other clinical indications.”