Part­nered with No­var­tis, tiny Ca­dent jumps out of stealth with $40M round for its CNS pipeline

A small Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts-based com­pa­ny is hop­ing its bet on CNS drugs us­ing a well es­tab­lished phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ap­proach — al­losteric mod­u­la­tors — will ce­ment its place as a biotech pow­er­house in the years to come. Ca­dent Ther­a­peu­tics — cur­rent­ly a 9-per­son team — has al­ready found a part­ner in No­var­tis $NVS.

The com­pa­ny is work­ing on treat­ments for move­ment and cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders us­ing al­losteric mod­u­la­tors, from which some of the biggest neu­ro­science prod­ucts, such as Xanax and Am­bi­en, have been de­vel­oped. On Thurs­day, Ca­dent said it had emerged “out of stealth mode” by an­nounc­ing a $40 mil­lion Se­ries B round of fund­ing, led by Cowen Health­care In­vest­ments and At­las Ven­ture. In­vestors such as Qim­ing Ven­ture Part­ners and No­var­tis In­sti­tutes for Bio­med­ical Re­search al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the round, which will be used to shep­herd two of the com­pa­ny’s ex­per­i­men­tal drugs in­to three Phase II tri­als.

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