Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Waltham, MA-based developer of treatments for diseases that affect mucosal tissues, has raised $6.2m in equity financing.
Backers include existing investors Lux Capital, Polaris Venture Partners, Third Rock Ventures, and Lighthouse Capital Partners.
The company intends to use the new funding to advance its internal pipeline of products toward human clinical trials.
Co-founded by Robert Langer, ScD, Institute Professor at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, Colin Gardner (formerly of TransForm Pharmaceuticals/Johnson and Johnson, and Merck), Justin Hanes (Johns Hopkins University), Kala Pharmaceuticals uses a proprietary mucus penetrating particle (MPP) technology platform to formulate active pharmaceutical ingredients so they are able to pass through human mucus secretions, in diverse organs, including the respiratory tract, eye, cervicovaginal tract and gastrointestinal tract.
The company has also been awarded two grants from:
– the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which is funding the development of an improved inhaled treatment for cystic fibrosis-related infection, and
– the National Eye Institute, which is supporting the advancement of better formulations for ocular drug administration.
FinSMEs
14/03/2012