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Venture Capital News: Promedior Expands Series D Round to $24.5M

2012-10-15
MALVERN, PA, Clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel biologic therapeutics for the treatment of fibrosis, today announced that it has completed a $24.5 million Series D financing round.
Promedior, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company developing novel biologic therapeutics for the treatment of fibrosis, today announced that it has completed a $24.5 million Series D financing round, adding $3 million in a second closing of this financing round from new investor, Shire Strategic Investment Group. The first close of the financing was led by another new investor, Fibrotec Ventures, LLC, and the round includes participation from all of Promedior's existing venture investors, including Morgenthaler Ventures, HealthCare Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Forbion Capital Partners and Easton Capital Investment Group.

Proceeds from the financing will enable Promedior to broaden and advance its pipeline of Pentraxin-2 therapeutics, currently in clinical development. The Company's lead product candidate, PRM-151 (recombinant human Pentraxin-2 (rhPTX-2)), has recently completed a Phase 1b clinical study in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients, and topline data are under review.

"Adding Shire as a new and strategic investor underscores the clinical progress that Promedior has made, as well as the tremendous potential of our new class of Pentraxin-2 therapeutics," said Suzanne Bruhn, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Promedior. "With the progress of our PRM-151 clinical programs, which have recently yielded new data in IPF, we are seeing growing validation that PRM-151's unique mechanism of action offers the potential to treat fibrosis in a new way to address the unmet needs of patients with fibrotic diseases."

Promedior is also using proceeds from this larger funding round to expand the clinical development of PRM-151 to include myelofibrosis, a rare disorder of the bone marrow, in which the marrow is replaced by fibrous scar tissue. Additionally, Promedior plans to accelerate the development of its drug candidate for ophthalmic indications, PRM-167 (rhPTX-2 variant for intravitreal injection), which is designed to be optimized for fibrovascular retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy and proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR).

In connection with this second close of the Series D financing, Armand Girard, a Vice President at Shire, will join the Board of Directors.

About Promedior

Promedior is a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of targeted therapeutics to treat diseases involving fibrosis. Fibrosis is a harmful process that occurs in many diseases, when normal healthy tissue is replaced with excessive scar tissue, compromising function and ultimately leading to organ failure. Promedior's proprietary platform is based upon Pentraxin-2, a naturally-occurring human protein that is specifically active at the site of tissue damage and works as an agonist, potentially preventing and reversing fibrosis.

By acting as a master regulator upstream in the fibrosis cascade, pentraxin-2 therapeutics harness the innate healing power of the immune system and open up new potential to treat a wide range of systemic fibrotic diseases for which there are no approved therapies. Promedior has successfully advanced lead therapeutic candidates in human clinical trials, and is initially focused on rare fibrotic diseases, including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and myelofibrosis, and fibrovascular retinal diseases, such as Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Promedior is backed by leading global healthcare venture investors, has a significant intellectual property estate relating to the discoveries and applications of pentraxin-2 therapeutics and is led by an experienced management team.
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