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news.Healthcare and life science firm Arix Bioscience has acquired a stake in Mitoconix Bio as part of an oversubscribed $20m Series A financing round.
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Mitoconix Bio is pioneering a novel strategy to improve mitochondrial function as a disease-modifying therapeutic for treating neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
Proceeds from the Series A financing will be used to advance the Company's lead product, MTC-1203, through pre-clinical and clinical development, and to expand its therapeutic pipeline to treat additional neurodegenerative disorders by improving mitochondrial function.
Arix Bioscience participated alongside existing investors including OrbiMed and new investors Remiges Ventures, which led the round, the Dementia Discovery Fund and RMGP Bio-Pharma Investment Fund. Jonathan Tobin of Arix Bioscience will join Mitoconix Bio's Board as an Observer.
Mitoconix Bio is developing proprietary compounds that inhibit the interaction between proteins that regulate mitochondrial processes implicated in neurodegeneration, thereby inhibiting excessive mitochondrial division and preventing cell injury without affecting physiological fission and normal cell functions. MTC-1203 is a first-in-class disease-modifying therapeutic for treating Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders for which current treatment is symptomatic only.
Mitoconix Bio, founded in 2016 at the FutuRx biotechnology incubator in Israel, is based on IP developed by Professor Daria Mochly-Rosen and her team at Stanford University and led by CEO Dr Eyal Neria. Prof. Mochly Rosen is also the founder and co-director of SPARK, the translational research programme at Stanford University, and was the founder and CSO of Kai Pharmaceuticals, a peptide therapeutic company that was acquired by Amgen in 2011 for $315 million.
Joe Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of Arix Bioscience plc, commented: "We are pleased to have participated in Mitoconix Bio's Series A and to be joining the Company alongside an impressive list of investors. Neurodegenerative diseases present a huge unmet clinical need to which Mitoconix Bio, founded on the ground-breaking IP by serial entrepreneur Prof. Mochly-Rosen and her team at Stanford University, is well-placed to develop an answer. Mitoconix is an exciting company whose work complements Arix's focus on dynamic healthcare and life science innovation."
