Zucara Therapeutics, a diabetes treatment developer exploiting University of Toronto intellectual property, will use the money for phase 1 and 2 trials.
Zucara Therapeutics, a Canada-based diabetes therapy developer based on research at University of Toronto, closed a $21m series A round on Tuesday led by Perceptive Xontogeny Venture (PXV) Fund.
PXV Fund is an affiliate of investment firm Perceptive Advisors and targeted at companies that are seeded, incubated or actively managed by life sciences accelerator Xontogeny.
Zucara Therapeutics is working on a treatment to prevent insulin-induced hypoglycaemia – low blood sugar levels – that needs to be administered only once per day.
The drug candidate, ZT-01, inhibits a pancreatic hormone called somatostatin, which impairs the secretion of another hormone, glucagon, that is responsible for controlling glucose levels.
The series A funding will go towards phase 1 and 2 trials of ZT-01 in patients living with type 1 diabetes and suffering from hypoglycaemia as a side effect of insulin therapy. The phase 1 trial is expected to launch in mid-2020.
Zucara Therapeutics builds on foundational intellectual property from University of Toronto. It was co-founded by commercialisation firms Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners and AdMare Bioinnovations.
Richard Liggins, chief scientific officer of Zucara, said: “This funding comes at a historically meaningful time, nearly 100 years after Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin at University of Toronto in 1921.
“As much of Zucara’s early inspiration originated at University of Toronto, we hope that it will be the next great innovation in diabetes management to originate in this part of Canada.”