Arch-backed biotech hauls in a fast B round as its reborn anti-psychotic zooms to a PhII finish line
Steve Paul has booked a $68 million clinical round for his single asset anti-psychotic biotech now in a Phase II study for schizophrenia. And with $110 million in total announced venture backing in 7 months, this one — Karuna Therapeutics with a combo drug stylishly dubbed KarXT — is shaping up as a possible turn into the fast lane to Wall Street, 2018 style.
Paul, you may recall, completed a lengthy development stint at Eli Lilly, where he spent a considerable amount of time beating his head against the stone wall of Alzheimer’s as the pharma giant burned through billions in its misguided efforts to come up with a blockbuster drug for that disease. One of those drugs he studied was the muscarinic receptor agonist xanomeline, an anti-psychotic which was shelved with many others due to some serious side effects. Karuna is combining that old drug with trospium chloride (Sanctura) to control the side effects, looking to follow up with clinical data to back them up ahead of what would have to be an ambitious pivotal plan to get through to a marketing approval.
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