A San Francisco biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule products for use in organ transplants and metabolic diseases including diabetes has raised $480,000, presumably to advance its lead candidates toward commercialization.
The first of Limerick BioPharma’s lead candidates, LIM-0705, is designed to improve the safety of existing immunosuppressive drugs used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients. Immunosuppressive drugs are potent and effective, but they can cause serious toxicities. In clinical studies, the company’s compound, which activates cellular pumps to remove drugs from certain cells, reduced the toxic and diabetogenic effects of a particular immunosuppressant, tacrolimus.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
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Limerick is also working on an oral therapy that addresses the underlying cause of diabetes and directly sensitizes the body to insulin without serious side effects.
A company representative could not be reached for comment on upcoming milestones.
Founded in 2004, the company is led by Wendye Robbins, an assistant professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and founder of NeurogesX Inc. (NASD:NGSX). Limerick has raised more than $35 million from investors including Altitude Funds, Arch Venture Partners, OVP Venture Partners and Sevin Rosen Funds.
The market for immunomodulators is expected to grow more than 8 percent annually through 2017, according to a recent market report from GBI Research. A drug similar to LIM-0705, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s belatacept, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for prevention of kidney transplant rejection in June.
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