Lati­go, a pain biotech years in the mak­ing, emerges with $135M on heels of Ver­tex PhI­II suc­cess

On Valen­tine’s Day, a non-opi­oid drug­mak­er un­veiled it­self af­ter near­ly five years of court­ing drug can­di­dates be­hind the scenes and work­ing qui­et­ly “on the heels” of Ver­tex Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Lati­go Bio­ther­a­peu­tics, formed by Los An­ge­les-area biotech in­cu­ba­tor and in­vestor West­lake Vil­lage BioPart­ners, emerged with a $135 mil­lion Se­ries A on Wednes­day morn­ing to go af­ter the same tar­get as Ver­tex’s lead non-opi­oid can­di­date: Nav1.8. The sodi­um chan­nel is found in the pe­riph­er­al ner­vous sys­tem, but not the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem, hence the ex­pec­ta­tion it won’t lead to ad­dic­tion.

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