Opsona Therapeutics, an Irish drug development company that is pioneering new treatments for inflammatory diseases, has raised €33m in Series C financing that it will use to carry out clinical studies to test its lead product targeted at kidney transplant patients.
Founded in 2004, Opsona is a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Its three founders are Luke O’Neill, a professor of biochemistry at TCD’s School of Biochemistry and Immunology, Prof Kingston Mills and Prof Dermot Kelleher.
Opsona is developing new treatments for inflammatory diseases and will use the €33m in financing to carry out a clinical study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of its lead product, OPN-305.
Opsona is developing the product for kidney transplant patients who are at high risk of delayed graft function. The company recently completed a successful phase 1 clinical trial in healthy human volunteers.
Dr Martin Welschof, CEO at Opsona, said the innate immune system represents a new frontier in targeting inflammatory diseases. He said the quality of venture and corporate investors in this funding round is a demonstration of Opsona’s expertise and capabilities.
The participants in Opsona’s Series C financing round include existing investors, Novartis Venture Fund, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Roche Venture Fund and Seroba Kernel Life Sciences.
The new investors joining the consortium are BB Biotech Ventures, Sunstone Capital, Baxter Ventures, Amgen Ventures and EMBL Ventures.
