University Hospital Tübingen's liver disease treatment spinout HepaRegenix has raised $21.6m in all following a series B round that will fund trials of its first candidate.
HepaRegenix, a Germany-based liver disease medicine spinout of University Hospital Tübingen, completed a series B round today that exceeded €11m ($12.2m) with investors including multi-institute tech transfer company Ascenion.
Pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim backed the round through its Venture Fund, investing alongside its peer Novo, public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Coparion, an investment fund backed by the German government and the EU.
Founded in 2015, HepaRegenix is working on drugs for acute and chronic liver diseases which target a molecular pathway called mitogen-activated protein kinase 4 (MKK4) thought to boost the regeneration of liver cells even where the organ has been severely damaged.
The capital will go to conducting clinical trials on HepaRegenix’s first candidate later this year, building on promising feedback on MKK4 from pre-clinical modeling. Target indications could include non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a disease characterised by liver inflammation and scarring from accumulated fat deposits.
MKK4 was discovered by researchers led by Lars Zender, director and chair of the eighth internal medicine unit at University Hospital Tübingen’s Department of Medicine.
HepaRegenix previously raised $9.4m of series A funding in 2017 co-led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Novo Seeds, a corporate venturing arm of Novo, with participation from HTGF and Coparion.
Ascenion participated in the series B round as an existing investor, but further details could not be ascertained.