AMO Pharma Limited, a London, UK- and Philadelphia, PA-based biopharmaceutical company, raised $25m in private equity financing.
Woodford Investment Management made the investment via the Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT).
The company intends to use the funds to advance two clinical-stage pipeline assets targeting rare muscular and central nervous system disorders and to expand the AMO Pharma pipeline through acquisition of additional development-stage products.
Led by Michael Snape, chief executive officer and founding director, and Lisa Wittmer, chief operating officer and head of portfolio development, AMO Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company which is working to identify and advance therapies for the treatment of serious and debilitating diseases in patient populations including rare genetic diseases.
The company is currently advancing two investigational therapies for treatment of fragile X syndrome and myotonic dystrophy, and is in the process of licensing additional development-stage products in diverse areas including autism and other CNS disorders.
In early 2016, AMO Pharma plans to initiate a Phase II clinical trial for the lead product candidate, AMO-02, in the treatment of a severe form of myotonic dystrophy (DM) known as DM1 or Steinert’s disease. It also plans to initiate a clinical program in fragile X syndrome with a second product candidate, AMO-01, an inhibitor of the ras-extracellular signal-regulated kinase pathway (Ras-ERK). In pre-clinical efficacy studies, AMO-01 rescued the neuronal phenotype of the Fmr1 knockout transgenic mouse model of fragile X syndrome, further supporting the hypothesis that inhibition of the Ras-ERK cascade may have therapeutic benefit in this disease.
FinSMEs
30/09/2015