Neuraptive Therapeutics, Inc. (Neuraptive) announced today that it has secured a $11.5 million Series A equity financing which remains open for additional investors. The round was led by New Rhein Healthcare Investors LLC (New Rhein). The Company will use the funds to further develop its flagship product, the AxoFuse Nerve Repair System (AxoFuse™), in clinical trials and to expand operations.
Improving Peripheral Nerve Repair
When a peripheral nerve is cut or crushed, the patient experiences immediate loss of sensation and function. Soon after injury the distal segments of the axons within an injured nerve always undergo programmed degeneration. Recovery is exclusively by slow (~1mm/day) and imperfect (only ~10% reinnervate distal targets) natural regeneration of the proximal axonal stumps. Contemporary surgical techniques facilitate natural regeneration but no current technology can increase the speed or improve the quality of recovery from nerve injury. As a result, patients with peripheral nerve injuries often experience prolonged or permanent disability. Neuraptive aims to improve clinical outcomes for patients with peripheral nerve injuries with AxoFuse™, a novel therapeutic product for use in conjunction with standard nerve repair surgery.
Prevention of Degeneration
"AxoFuse™ has the potential to dramatically improve outcomes for patients over today's standard of care. By reconnecting a substantial proportion of severed axons, we expect AxoFuse™ to be able to abrogate degeneration and accompanying limb atrophy. This should lead to significantly improved speed and quality of recovery, which will be of great benefit to patients," said David Jackson, CEO and co-founder of Neuraptive.
Instead of relying on the body's natural but slow regeneration process, in extensive preclinical studies, AxoFuse™ has been shown to prevent degeneration of a substantial proportion (~50-70%) of the axons within a repaired nerve. AxoFuse™ has been shown in preclinical studies to dramatically reduce recovery time and significantly improve stable recovery of function versus standard nerve repair and natural regeneration. The Company believes AxoFuse™ has exciting potential to improve surgical repair of peripheral nerves severed during injury and connect nerves in several types of surgical reconstructions.
Neuraptive is developing AxoFuse™ for use in clinical trials, anticipated to begin in 2019. Extensive preclinical data and limited clinical case studies support the hypothesis that outcomes from nerve repairs using AxoFuse™ will greatly exceed the standard of care in surgical nerve repair. "This is the first product that maintains the neural network downstream of a peripheral nerve injury. Doing so is expected to enable significantly faster recovery with better functional outcomes for the patient," said Gino DiSciullo, Board Director and co-founder. "We believe this product will change the standard of care in the treatment of peripheral nerve injuries and has broad applicability in surgical reconstructions involving nerves."
About Neuraptive
Neuraptive was established to develop and commercialize novel nerve repair technologies to improve clinical outcomes for patients and the surgeons who care for them. The Company has offices in Philadelphia, PA and near Boulder, CO as well as laboratory facilities at the Colorado University Anschutz Medical Center in Aurora, CO.
About New Rhein Healthcare Investors LLC (New Rhein)
New Rhein is a private equity investment firm focused on healthcare therapeutics and medical devices. Its partners and associates are former industry executives with significant operational and transactional experience. The firm's partners, associates, and advisors are former industry executives with operational and transactional experience. New Rhein invests in businesses that utilize proven products in new applications; specifically clinically de-risked assets and existing molecules with newly discovered uses and purposes. We believe that "innovation drives greater risk-adjusted value than invention" and that major unmet medical needs can be addressed by existing solutions, improving health economic outcomes in doing so.
