Biotech company AstronauTx, aiming to develop novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has closed a £48m ($61m) Series A financing.
The company was launched in 2019 and spun out from UCL Business (UCLB), the commercialisation company for UCL, initially building on research from the Alzheimer's Research UK UCL Drug Discovery Institute (UCL DDI).
The UCL DDI is positioned to couple the deep disease knowledge and biology expertise of the academic community at UCL and further afield with industry-standard drug discovery approaches, to rapidly translate emerging innovations into new medicines.
AstronauTx and the UCL DDI have an ongoing drug discovery collaboration to develop new medicines that reset the behaviour of astrocytes, crucial support cells in the brain. Astrocytes are normally very important for keeping nerve cells functioning well, but they change in Alzheimer's disease and instead become damaging.
Professor Paul Whiting (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) is among the company's co-founders. He said: "This funding will enable AstronauTx to accelerate their drug discovery projects towards testing in patients, with the ultimate aim of finding new treatments for Alzheimer's disease."
Professor Fiona Ducotterd, Chief Scientific Officer for Alzheimer's Research UK's UCL Drug Discovery Institute (UCL DDI) added: "We are delighted for our collaborators at AstronauTx. This strong support from the investment community to progress their portfolio assets to patients sends an important message in the field that we are moving forwards and new medicines are on the way. It's essential that we continue to break ground discovering and developing the next generation of Alzheimer's and other dementias therapeutics to help all patients and their families living with these terrible conditions."
AstronauTx was created by the government-launched Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) in 2019 with additional seed stage funding from the UCL Technology Fund and the UK Future Fund.
The DDF is a specialised venture capital fund investing in projects and companies that discover and develop effective disease-modifying therapies for dementia. It was formed by the UK government's Department of Health and Social Care, in partnership with world-leading international pharmaceutical companies and the charity Alzheimer's Research UK.
The proceeds of the Series A financing will be used to advance AstronauTx's portfolio of small-molecule drugs, including a clinical study in patients with Alzheimer's disease for the lead programme. The treatments are expected to provide both symptomatic and disease-modifying benefit.
In July 2023, AstronauTx announced a partnership with Saniona, a Danish biotechnology company, to identify new treatments by modulating a novel, undisclosed ion channel target, expanding the company's portfolio of programmes. In September 2023, AstronauTx was awarded an Innovate UK grant to fund preclinical work on one of its programmes.
Dr Ruth McKernan, co-founder and chair of AstronauTx, said: "We now know that the processes causing Alzheimer's and other similar diseases are modifiable. Progress towards a compendium of new drugs against these devastating diseases is thankfully well underway. Our treatments will be oral drugs, applicable across multiple neurodegenerative conditions, and additive with mechanisms that are currently in late-stage development."
Simon Goldman, Partner at UCL Technology Fund, added: "Congratulations to AstronauTx on completion of their Series A. The financing round led by the Novartis Venture Fund and attracting capital from several leading global venture investors will enable the company to continue on its mission to create an alternative treatment for Alzheimer's disease. This is a great example of the type of investment that we at the UCL Technology Fund strive to back: breakthrough UCL research that has the potential for enormous positive societal impact while generating financial return."
The Series A financing was led by the Novartis Venture Fund, attracting capital from several global venture investors including Brandon Capital, Bristol Myers Squibb, EQT Life Sciences investing from the LSP Dementia Fund, and MPM Capital with participation from the Dementia Discovery Fund.
