The investment in Illinois-based Cour Pharmaceuticals had participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiatives and Roche Ventures.
Pictured: Plants wrapped in dollar bills grow in ground/iStock, RomoloTavani
Illinois-based Cour Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday announced that it raised $105 million in Series A funding to help the company advance multiple, wholly-owned candidates.
The investment was led by Lumira Ventures and Alpha Wave Ventures and had participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiatives and Roche Ventures. Angelini Ventures and the DJRF T1D Fund also participated.
“The impressive syndicate of thought-leading investors and prominent strategic investors is a testament to Cour’s platform technology and our paradigm-changing potential for patients impacted by a variety of autoimmune diseases. We are excited to have this support as we advance our pipeline and revolutionize antigen-specific immune tolerance while avoiding immune system suppression in our mission to potentially bring to market life-changing therapies for patients,” Cour CEO John Puisis said in a statement.
Cours’ clinical program includes a Phase IIa study in Myasthenia Gravis for its CNP-106 candidate as well as in type 1 diabetes for CNP-103. The company received IND clearance from the FDA for CNP-106 in 2022.
The startup also has a candidate in a Phase II study in celiac disease, for which it partnered with Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and a separate partnership with Ironwood Pharmaceuticals for a program in primary biliary cholangitis.
According to Cour, its therapies are based on an antigen-specific immune tolerance platform that seeks to “reprogram” the immune system and find the root causes of diseases. The company’s pipelinealso includes developing products to treat vitiligo, T-cell immunogenicity and peanut allergy.
“With multiple validating partnerships, an independent clinical development pipeline, and the first known clinical study in humans demonstrating antigen-specific tolerance, we strongly believe Cour is well positioned to be the leader in bringing to market multiple first-in-class antigen-specific therapies to drive a paradigm shift in the treatment of autoimmune disorders away from immune suppressive approaches and towards true immune reprogramming,” Chris Dimitropoulos, managing director of biotechnology at Alpha Wave Global and new member of Cour’s board of directors, said in a statement.
This is not Cour’s first round of investment. In September 2022, the biotech secured a $30 million funding round from Alpha Wave Ventures.
While many biotechs have been looking to go down the IPO route in early 2024, some are still starting the year with Series A rounds. In mid-January, the biotech Tr1X emerged from stealth with a $75 million A round as it looked to bring its cell therapies to the clinic later this year.
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
