D&D Pharmatech is the parent company of U.S.-based Neuraly, Precision Molecular and Theraly Fibrosis. All three are spinouts from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
D&D Pharmatech, based in Gyenggi-Do, Korea and Germantown, Maryland, closed on a Series B financing round worth $137.1 million. The financing was led by U.S.-based Octave Life Sciences and Korean venture firm Smilegate Investment. Investors included InterVest, Magna Investment and LB Investment, all previous investors. Individual shareholders and co-founders also participated.
D&D Pharmatech is the parent company of U.S.-based Neuraly, Precision Molecular and Theraly Fibrosis. All three are spinouts from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The monies raised will be used by Neuraly to move clinical candidates for neurodegenerative diseases into Phase II trials, and by Precision to progress several neuroinflammation imaging agents into Phase I and Phase II trials. It will also be used by Theraly to advance a preclinical fibrosis candidate into a Phase I/II trial.
Neuraly will move its lead asset, NLY01, into Phase II trials for Parkinson’s disease in 2019 and Alzheimer’s disease in 2020. NLY01 is a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonist.
Precision Molecular is working on four clinical-stage assets and one IND-enabling stage PET imaging agents for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The company hopes to receive the first-ever approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for non-invasive imaging related to those disease targets involved in neuroinflammation. They also hope these tests will support Neuraly’s clinical trials and therapies.
Theraly’s lead product candidate is TLY012, which selectively targets myofibroblasts. These cells are believed to be critical in fibrosis, which is involved in numerous diseases in various tissues. In preclinical models, TLY012 reversed established fibrosis in liver, pancreas and skin diseases. The company believes it has the potential to cure fibrotic diseases such as systemic sclerosis, liver fibrosis/cirrhosis, chronic pancreatitis, and fibrosis-driven cancers. Phase I/II clinical trials are planned to launch in 2020 for chronic pancreatitis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)/liver fibrosis.
“With this funding, we will continue executing on our strategy to develop truly novel approaches to treat challenging diseases with significant unmet need,” stated Sung Mook Lim, chief executive officer of D&D Pharmatech. “The Johns Hopkins-based scientific leadership across our family of companies has been instrumental in elucidating the underlying mechanisms at the core of neurodegenerative and fibrotic diseases.”
He went on to say, “leveraging these insights, our teams have identified potentially game-changing therapeutics based on the central hypotheses for these conditions. The combination of deep, disease-specific expertise, our world-class drug development capabilities and additional funding will enable ongoing advancement of our clinical and preclinical programs. We remain grateful for the confidence and enthusiasm of our investors.”
In April 2018, investors plopped down about $16.5 million in D&D’s Series A. Two months later, Neuraly raised $36 million in a Series A round led by D&D. Neuraly launched in 2016 out of the laboratory of Johns Hopkins researcher Ted Dawson, the Leonard and Madlyn Abramson Professor in Neurodegenerative Diseases and director of the Institute for Cell Engineering.
Neuraly’s NLY01 is the same class of drug, GLP-1R agonists, as several approved diabetes drugs. In preclinical animal studies, the drug slowed or stopped disease progression and improved motor and cognitive functions in Parkinson’s disease models. That research was published in the journal Nature Medicine.
The research showed the critical role of the glial compartment of the neural tissue in the formation of diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. In the animal studies, NLY01 prevented neural cell death by inhibiting microglial activation and the formation of A1 neurotoxic astroglial cells.
