CoDa Therapeutics closes US$19 million Series B financing

CoDa Therapeutics, Inc. announces today it has raised US$19.2 million (from current investors in a Series B financing. New investors will have the opportunity to participate in a second closing, scheduled for a future date.

CoDa is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company working to develop a new drug therapy for wounds that do not heal properly, including venous leg and diabetic foot ulcers.

CoDa has dual operations in NZ and the US that has been co-funded by BioPacificVentures, a New Zealand venture capital group and other international investors. The funds will be applied to research and development of the company’s wound-healing technologies.

The Series B financing round was completed with existing investors including Auckland’s BioPacificVentures, Domain Associates (San Diego), who led the round and GBS Venture Partners (Melbourne, Australia).

CoDa’s lead drug candidate, Nexagon® is a first-in-class compound being tested for its ability to speed healing and reduce inflammation. Successfully developed, it would be applied topically to stop over-production of a protein known as “connexin43”. The company has discovered that chronic, poorly healing wounds are characterized by an abundance of connexin43 and that suppression by Nexagon® can improve healing.

The concept for a blocking therapy for treating wounds was developed by Professors David Becker from University College London and Colin Green from the University of Auckland.

CoDa is now working under a US Food & Drug Administration-approved IND[1] to generate clinical data to support regulatory approval for marketing.

CoDa completed a first Phase 2 trial testing Nexagon® in 98 patients with venous leg ulcers. In the drug arm almost one third of patients were completely healed after four weeks following just three applications of Nexagon® compared to only six per cent complete healing in the placebo arm.

According to Dr. Thomas Serena, a Nexagon® study investigator and Founder and Medical Director of the Penn North Centers for Advanced Wound Care, Nexagon® appears to be “an important step forward, and a possible ‘game changer’ in the treatment of chronic wounds”.

“The data from CoDa’s Nexagon® trial are not only therapeutically very impressive, but tell us that we have a real opportunity to alleviate the difficult burdens of chronic wounds that are faced by patients and insurers alike,” Dr. Serena says.

Bradford Duft, CEO of CoDa says the proceeds of the financing will cover financial requirements for the next two years.

“This funding will enable us to take essential steps for the development of CoDa. In particular, we will now conduct a large Phase 2 multicentre venous leg ulcer trial in the United States, New Zealand and Australia with Nexagon®.

“We will also continue the preclinical development of our product portfolio in our research laboratories in Auckland.”

Andrew Kelly, Executive Director of BioPacificVentures, says the round of financing is an important validation of the potential of CoDa's approach to develop a new generation of innovative products to better serve the growing wound and inflammation markets.

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About CoDa Therapeutics Inc. – CoDa Therapeutics is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel targeted therapies that address major unmet medical needs in inflammation, wound-healing and tissue repair. The company is pioneering a new field of science: gap junction modulation using a new class of therapeutics that can modulate wound responses and reduce inflammation. CoDa has two open INDs and has completed two Phase 1 clinical trials in skin and eye, where Nexagon® was shown to be safe and tolerable following administration to over 250 wounds on more than 60 subjects. CoDa’s technology, which can be applied topically, been shown to work across a wide variety of wound and inflammatory settings and conditions. CoDa presently has issued patents in the US, Europe and elsewhere, and pending applications in more than a dozen other patent families directed to methods and compositions for the treatment of acute wounds, chronic wounds, scarring, abnormal scarring, inflammation and pain, fibrosis, surgical adhesions, and orthopedic procedures, as well as combination therapies and improved medical devices.

About NEXAGON® – The active ingredient in NEXAGON®, which has been shown to work across a wide variety of tissues and conditions, is CODA001, a natural, unmodified antisense oligonucleotide that down-regulates the key gap junction protein connexin43 to dampen inflammatory responses and enhance healing. Data shows that for optimal healing connexin43 is normally dialed-down at the edges of acute wounds (i.e., wounds that will heal normally). Conversely, other data demonstrate that connexin43 is wrongly up-regulated at the edge of chronic wounds (i.e., wounds that are difficult to heal such as venous and diabetic ulcers). CoDa believes that one can better target available medical options and design more effective wound-healing alternatives by devising a therapeutic approach based on biological mechanisms naturally at work or conversely, at fault, in a given situation. The answer is thought to lie in connexin43, which can be seen as a “master switch” in wound healing that is temporarily turned “off” for superior healing of acute wounds, and when left “on” can lead to the unwanted inflammation and/or stalled healing characteristic of chronic wounds.