Spain-based orphan disease drug developer Minoryx Therapeutics has closed a €21.3m ($25m) series B round featuring Roche Venture Fund and Chiesi Ventures, corporate venturing subsidiaries of pharmaceutical firms Roche and Chiesi.
Fund+, led the round, which included Caixa Capital Risc, the venture capital arm of financial services firm La Caixa, as well as SFPI-FPIM, Sambrinvest, SRIW, Ysios Capital, Kurma Partners, Idinvest Partners and HealthEquity.
Minoryx is developing treatments for rare, life-threatening diseases that affect the body’s central nervous system.
The funding will be used to test additional indications for the company’s lead compound, MIN-102, and a clinical trial for a second central nervous system-related orphan indication.
Marc Martinell, Minoryx’s co-founder and CEO, said: The proceeds of the round will allow the company to demonstrate the potential of MIN-102 in new indications.
“These indications for MIN-102 include neuroinflammatory conditions such as cerebral ALD (cALD) as well as multiple neurodegenerative diseases.”
Caixa Capital Risc and Inveready initially invested $1.7m in Minoryx in 2013, before La Caixa’s Caixa Innvierte BioMed II fund joined the philanthropic Sanfilippo Foundation to provide another $1.8m two years later.
The company added $22.1m in a series A round later in 2015 that was led by Ysios Capital and backed by Roche Venture Fund, Chiesi Ventures, Caixa Capital Risc, Idinvest Partners, Kurma Partners and HealthEquity.
