Aprinoia Therapeutics, a clinical-stage neuroscience biotech company which focuses on tau, alpha-synuclein and novel targets for neurodegenerative diseases, has announced the completion of its US$11.1 million Series B round. The Series B round was led by KTB Network (Korea) and DCI Partners (Japan), along with participations from ShangPharma Investment Group (China) and TaiAn Technologies (Taiwan). The proceeds of the funding will be used to finance preclinical and clinical development for Aprinoia’s imaging diagnostic and therapeutic pipelines.
Aprinoia will assemble the diverse resources brought into the company by the investors across several countries in Asia to accelerate the development of its programmers. The company’s most advanced tau PET imaging tracer, 18F-PM-PBB3, has shown great potential in visualizing tau pathologist in Alzheimer’s and Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy (PSP) patients in clinical studies conducted in early 2017 and the results have been well-received.
“Our tracers will provide precise diagnosis of tau pathologies for patients and potentially for people without obvious clinical symptoms. More importantly, the tracers will be crucial for developing therapeutics and helping doctors precisely prescribe treatments and track treatment efficacies in patients,” said Ming-Kuei Jang, founder and CEO of Aprinoia. “We are also very excited about the progress we have made with our therapeutic platforms. We are building collections of small molecules and antibodies with diverse properties and therapeutic potentials. We are fortunate to have dedicated teams, collaborators and investors working together to find comprehensive solutions for our research and medical communities, and ultimately for our patients.
“We are thrilled to invest in Aprinoia along with top-tier investors in the life science industry. Moreover, we are delighted to partner with world class talents at Aprinoia,” said, Kevin Kuk Hyun Kyung from KTB Network, who has joined the board of director in conjunction with Series B lead financing.
“Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and dementia in general are the biggest unmet needs in the healthcare industry and society, causing large economic and social cost. But we believe that Aprinoia’s vision and expertise in creating the first and the best-in-class innovative tau PET tracer and therapeutic programmes will significantly address the current unsolved issues of these diseases,” added Jiwoong Chun, Healthcare Investment leader from KTB Network.
Aprinoia previously raised US$6.4 million in its Seed and Series A round, which supported the completion of preclinical development and the initiation of clinical development for its second generation tau PET imaging tracer, 18F-PM-PBB3, in the US and in Japan. The company has invested rigorously in building a strong R&D team for executing its current and future pipeline development, including a third generation tau PET imaging tracer, alpha-synuclein PET imaging tracer and two distinctive therapeutic programmes.
