Quest for safe mus­carinic re­cep­tor ag­o­nists to tack­le dis­as­ter prone CNS field steers Karuna to $75M IPO

Less than a year af­ter rais­ing $42 mil­lion, bank­ing on the po­ten­tial of two old­er drugs as an ap­proach to fight Alzheimer’s and schiz­o­phre­nia, Boston-based Karuna Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals on Fri­day laid the ground­work for a $75 mil­lion IPO.

The PureTech-backed com­pa­ny is work­ing on the hy­poth­e­sis that a com­bi­na­tion of mus­carinic acetyl­choline re­cep­tor ag­o­nist xanome­line — an Eli Lil­ly castoff — and tro­spi­um chlo­ride, an FDA-ap­proved mus­carinic re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist to­geth­er will make an adept an­tipsy­chot­ic.

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