SR One, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, has co-led a $30m series A round for US-based immuno-neurology therapy developer Tranquis Therapeutics.
The round was co-led by venture capital firm Remiges Ventures and also featured Vivo Capital, Hillsborough Venture, Correlation Ventures and undisclosed other investors.
Tranquis is working on treatments for neurodegenerative and ageing-related diseases triggered by dysfunction in myeloid immune cells. The approach could herald treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s among others.
The company’s technology is based on research conducted by scientific co-founder Edgar Engleman, professor of pathology and medicine at Stanford University’s School of Medicine.
Sanjay Kakkar, president and CEO of Tranquis, said. “With the support of our investors and proceeds from the series A financing, we plan to complete the non-clinical development work for our pipeline program, TQS-168, and advance it toward clinical proof of concept in orphan diseases such as ALS or FTD, while further expanding our discovery platform and pipeline with next generation compounds.
“We also have identified an on-target biomarker that will help inform and possibly accelerate our clinical development program.”
Tranquis has not disclosed details of its seed financing, though SR One partner Rajeev Dadoo, a member of its board of directors, revealed the unit had already backed the startup at seed stage.
