Causeway Therapeutics Raises £1M in Seed Funding

Causeway Therapeutics, a Glasgow, Scotland, UK-based developer of therapies for tendon injuries and disorders, collectively known as tendinopathies, raised £1M in seed funding.

Backers included Mediqventure and the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise.

The funds will support the company’s development efforts.

co-founded Dr Derek Gilchrist (Chief Executive Officer) and Mr Neal Millar (clinical senior research fellow in orthopaedics at the University of Glasgow), Causeway is developing a new treatment for tendon problems in humans and horses. While working in the laboratory of Professor Iain McInnes at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation, Dr Gilchrist and Millar discovered that a single microRNA-miR29a plays a key role in regulating the production of collagens, the proteins that give tendons their strength.
Replacement of Type I collagen with Type III collagen is characteristic of tendinopathy; loss of miR29a in human tendons drives an increase in Type III collagen production. Causeway’s lead product, TenoMiR™, is a replacement for the natural miR29a that is depleted in tendinopathy.

In addition to developing TenoMiR™ as a human therapeutic, the company is developing an analogous therapy for horses suffering tendinopathy.

FinSMEs

04/08/2017

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