Tout­ing su­pe­ri­or nasal de­liv­ery, Sat­suma bags $62M for new for­mu­la­tion of old mi­graine drug

A sin­gle-mind­ed biotech out of South San Fran­cis­co has raised $62 mil­lion to run the last mile hop­ing to breath new life in­to a gener­ic mi­graine drug.

Spun out of Japan’s Shin Nip­pon Bio­med­ical Lab­o­ra­to­ries two years ago, Sat­suma Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ sole lead as­set com­bines di­hy­droer­go­t­a­mine with a dry-pow­der nasal for­mu­la­tion and drug de­liv­ery tech­nolo­gies de­vel­oped by the par­ent com­pa­ny.

Di­hy­droer­go­t­a­mine works by tight­en­ing blood ves­sels in the brain and in­hibit­ing the re­lease of pro-in­flam­ma­to­ry sub­stances. Un­like the much-watched CGRP class, it is de­signed for acute treat­ment in­stead of pre­ven­tion. Al­though nasal sprays are cur­rent­ly avail­able, they are gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered less ef­fec­tive than the in­jectable ver­sions — and that’s what Sat­suma is out to change.

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