Cadent Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Mass.-based company focused on the development of breakthrough therapies to improve the lives of patients with movement and cognitive disorders, raised $40m in Series B financing.
This round was led by Cowen Healthcare Investments and Atlas Venture, with participation from Qiming Venture Partners, Access Industries, Clal Biotechnology Industries and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research.
Led by Michael Curtis, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, and newly appointed Bob (Ibrahim) Dagher, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Cadent Therapeutics combines target specificity, patient selection, drug design and optimization, and novel quantitative endpoints to create first-in-class molecules to treat movement and cognitive disorders.
The company is rapidly advancing its pipeline of positive allosteric modulators to treat:
- spinocerebellar ataxia,
- essential tremor, and
- schizophrenia.
Its lead program, CAD-1883, an SK (small conductance calcium sensitive potassium channel) positive allosteric modulator (PAM), is being investigated for the treatment of essential tremor (ET) and spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). SK channels are ion channels which regulate the amount of potassium that enters a cell. In preclinical disease models, CAD-1883 has demonstrated the ability to regulate neuronal firing, improve motor control and reduce tremor. CAD-1883 is currently in a Phase 1 dose escalation trial and has been well-tolerated at all doses to date.
The company has an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with Novartis to develop a negative allosteric modulator, now in Phase 1 clinical studies for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression.
FinSMEs
15/11/2018