Cerevance secures $51m to advance drugs for Parkinson’s

Pharmaceutical company, Cerevance, has secured additional funding to develop its novel therapeutics for central nervous system (CNS) diseases, including Parkinson’s.

The drug development company has announced an expansion of its Series B funding round with an additional close of $51 million, bringing the total Series B financing to $116 million. 

The financing will support upcoming clinical trials focused on Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and schizophrenia.

Cerevance has a growing pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs developed using the company’s proprietary NETSseq platform to discover and validate novel therapeutic targets in some of the most challenging neurological diseases.

Its proprietary therapeutic, CVN424, has demonstrated safety and efficacy in reducing OFF time as an adjunctive therapy with levodopa in patients with Parkinson’s disease in a Phase 2 study. The company plans to initiate a Phase 2 proof of concept study assessing CVN424 as a monotherapy treatment in patients with newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease not yet treated with levodopa in Q2 2023.

It’s novel target, CVN293, dampens maladaptive central neuroinflammation associated with many neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. A Phase 1 study assessing CVN293 is planned for Q3 2023.

Cerevance also has a multi-year strategic research collaboration with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, to identify novel targets for Alzheimer’s disease utilising the NETSseq platform. 

Craig Thompson, chief executive officer of Cerevance, commented: “We are thrilled to secure additional funding from world-class investors who strongly support the need for novel therapies to treat neurological diseases.

“We are well positioned to continue to advance our clinical and preclinical programs and proprietary NETSseq platform. With this financing, we expect to reach several key clinical milestones across multiple disease areas with unmet needs.”