Morphogen-IX, based in Cambridge, has raised €20.4M (£18.4M) to fund a new type of treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension.
The Series B financing will go towards the preclinical development of the company’s lead candidate, which has the potential to become the first to treat the condition rather than just addressing the symptoms.
People with pulmonary arterial hypertension suffer from narrowing blood vessels in the lungs and have a high risk of death. Finding effective treatments for the disease has proved difficult so far; Actelion, the most valuable biotech in Europe until its acquisition in 2017, had a big phase III failure with a drug candidate for the same condition.
The lead candidate of Morphogen-IX is a protein, called bone morphogenetic protein 9, that has been engineered to keep its ability to protect blood vessels in the lung while removing its ability to induce bone growth.
A virtual biotech company founded in 2015, Morphogen-IX plans to take the drug candidate to phase II trials, where preliminary efficacy in humans will be tested, in the next 3 to 4 years.
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