USA – Rivus Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Charlottesville, VA-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to improving cardio-metabolic health, completed a $132m Series B financing.
The round was led by RA Capital Management with participation from Bain Capital Life Sciences, BB Biotech AG and existing investors Longitude Capital, Medicxi and RxCapital. In conjunction with the funding, Derek DiRocco, partner at RA Capital, new board director. The company intends to use the funds for clinical advancement of lead candidate HU6, a Controlled Metabolic Accelerator (CMA) designed to treat cardio-metabolic disease by addressing obesity, a primary driver of disease.Led by Allen Cunningham, President and CEO, Rivus Pharmaceuticals is a leader in mitochondrial biology dedicated to improving cardio-metabolic health by advancing a new class of medicines, Controlled Metabolic Accelerators (CMAs). Its small molecule therapy, HU6, represents an opportunity to empower patients on their journey to health when facing a broad range of conditions, including obesity, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), type 2 diabetes, and Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)/Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Rivus’ CMAs are designed to safely harness mitochondrial uncoupling, a natural process that regulates and dissipates energy, to selectively reduce fat throughout the body. Earlier this year, the company released data from a Phase 2a metabolic study investigating lead candidate HU6 in obese participants. The study provided proof of concept validation that CMAs have the potential to treat not only obesity, but a range of cardio-metabolic diseases including heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), type 2 diabetes and Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)/Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).22/09/2022
