Bsense Bio Therapeutics has emerged from stealth with a round of undisclosed size that involved Takeda Ventures and Johnson & Johnson Innovation–JJDC.
Ramot, the tech transfer office of Tel Aviv University, has formally spun out Israel-based Bsense Bio Therapeutics with an undisclosed amount of funding to deliver small molecule-based drugs for neuropathic pain.
The capital was supplied by the respective investment divisions of drug firms Takeda and Johnson & Johnson – Takeda Ventures and Johnson & Johnson Innovation–JJDC – together with the government-owned Israel Innovation Authority and investment firm OrbiMed Israel Partners.
Founded in September 2018, Bsense Bio Therapeutics hopes to exploit two channels, TRPV1 and Kv7.2/3, that are thought to play an integral role in the process of pain signalling.
The channels nestle together on sensory nociceptive neurons, acting as the gateways for the flow of ligand and sodium ions respectively.
Neuropathic pain results from hyper-excitability in the somatosensory part of the nervous system, often arising as a symptom of trauma or conditions including diabetes and late-stage cancer.
As many as half of patients with neuropathic pain experience inadequate outcomes from existing medications, but Bsense Bio’s concept would serve as the basis for multi-drug treatments that are potentially better equipped for the condition’s heterogeneous causes.
Bsense Bio is currently evaluating three lead compounds within in vitro conditions for their specificity and selectivity in neuropathic pain with a view to beginning in vivo studies to determine their safety and effectiveness.
The spinout’s concept was invented by Bernard Attali, a professor focused on research into brain and heart potassium channels at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine.
