Neurona Therapeutics has announced that it has secured $120m in funding to help advance its lead candidate, NRTX-1001, a regenerative neural cell therapy currently being assessed for drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).
Affecting around 50 million people globally, MTLE is the most common form of focal epilepsy, which can trigger ongoing seizures despite medical treatment.
Furthermore, for people with seizures resistant to anti-seizure drugs, epilepsy surgery can be an option. However, the surgical options are not available or effective for everyone and can be tissue-destructive with significant adverse effects.
The financing was provided through seed funding, co-led by Viking Global Investors and Cormorant Asset Management, as well as other institutional supporters including US Investments, UCB Ventures, Euclidean Capital, the Column Group and Alexandria Venture Investments.
Neurona’s lead candidate is a cell therapy comprised of inhibitory GABAergic interneurons, which could potentially address the underlying hyperactive neural networks in epileptic seizures.
Previous results from a phase 1/2 study of NRTX-1001, which Neurona presented at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society in December last year, showed a more than 95% drop in overall seizure frequency for over a year after treatment.
In addition, the candidate was safe overall, with adverse events considered mild to moderate in severity.
NRTX-1001 is also currently in the preclinical evaluation stage for testing in Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease.
The company will also use the funding to channel its other pipeline projects, which include investigational myelinating glial cell and gene-edited cell therapies, which are both for yet-undisclosed indications.
Cory Nicholas, chief executive officer and co-founder of Neurona, said: “Neurona’s cell therapies have the potential to transform the treatment of previously refractory, devastating neurological disorders.
“This funding will support ongoing and planned clinical studies of NRTX-1001 for drug-resistant epilepsies and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as the advancement of our other cell therapy candidates towards the clinic for additional neurological indications.”
