Zucara Therapeutics Inc., a Canadian diabetes life sciences company advancing once-daily therapeutic to prevent low blood glucose levels (hypoglycemia), secured US$3.9m in non-dilutive funding.
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust provided the funding to support preclinical advancement of Zucara’s lead drug candidate.
The partnership is structured as a program-related investment (PRI) in the form of a loan to Zucara.
Zucara recently defined its lead drug candidate “ZT-01” which is focused on the prevention of hypoglycemia in people with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) and other types of insulin-dependent diabetes. Now, the company is moving forward with GLP toxicology, GMP manufacturing and other Investigational New Drug/Clinical Trial Application enabling activities to bring its lead drug to Phase I clinical trials in 2019.
Preclinical development work will be led by Dr. Richard Liggins, Zucara’s Chief Scientific Officer.
Led by Michael Midmer, Chief Executive Officer, Zucara will join other institutions in a Helmsley-supported scientific working group focused on understanding and restoring the pancreas’s natural ability to prevent hypoglycemia in individuals with T1D.
In this working group, investigators study relevant cell types, including alpha and delta cells, and share knowledge in an effort to make therapeutic discoveries within an area of research that is historically underappreciated and underfunded.
FinSMEs
10/04/2018