Pharnext SAS, a Paris, France-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of innovative treatments for severe neurological diseases, closed a €4.8m Series A round of funding. Investors include Truffle Capital, which remains the majority shareholder, Aurinvest Capital 2, Financière Boscary and France-based entrepreneurs Charles Beigbeder (founder of Audacia, Poweo, Selftrade and AgroGeneration), Claude Darmon (former President of the CEGELEC group) and Olivier Fulconis (former Executive VP and CMO at Converteam).
In 2007, Truffle Capital had provided the company with €2.5m in seed financing.
Based on a proprietary platform, Pharnext’s discovery engine has the capability to identify rational drug combinations (Pleodrugs™). The funds will allow the company to consider launching the first human clinical trials of its Pleodrug™ in the treatment of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease*, during 2010, and continue in vitro and in vivo research programmes in pathologies including Alzheimer’s disease, chemotherapy-induced peripheral polycystic kidney disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hyperlipidaemia, neuropathy, and diabetes.
*Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease is a chronic, severe, invalidating neuromuscular disease, which affects about 3 million people worldwide. It is incurable at present.
FinSMEs
09/06/2010