With tech from Spin­raza­'s mak­er, French start­up Dy­nacure gets $55M to tack­le neu­ro­mus­cu­lar dis­ease

Drug dis­cov­ery pow­er­house Io­n­is gave Bio­gen one of its biggest wins in re­cent times with the de­liv­ery of Spin­raza, the spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy drug ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er $750 mil­lion in sales this year. Since its Spin­raza days, Io­n­is has churned out promis­ing pro­gram af­ter promis­ing pro­gram, ce­ment­ing its rep­u­ta­tion for de­liv­er­ing clin­i­cal as­sets to its part­ners.

Now, a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Io­n­is and a re­search in­sti­tute in France has laid the foun­da­tion for a start­up that’s tack­ling an­oth­er neu­ro­mus­cu­lar dis­or­der. This time, they’re shoot­ing to de­vel­op a drug for cen­tronu­clear my­opa­thy, a con­di­tion char­ac­ter­ized by mus­cle wast­ing and mus­cle weak­ness. And a group of in­vestors led by An­dera Part­ners (for­mer­ly Ed­mond de Roth­schild In­vest­ment Part­ners) has ponied up $55 mil­lion to sup­port the re­search.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER