Schroders Capital GIT joins Neurona Therapeutics funding round

(Sharecast News) - Schroders Capital Global Innovation Trust announced an investment of $1.6m (£1.3m) in Neurona Therapeutics, a prominent US-based clinical-stage cell therapy company, on Friday. The investment by the trust was part of Neurona's series E financing round, which successfully raised $120m.

Schroders said the financing round was co-led by Viking Global Investors and Cormorant Asset Management, and saw participation from a range of investors, both new and existing.

Neurona Therapeutics specialises in the development of allogeneic neural cell therapies aimed at addressing chronic diseases of the nervous system.

The funds procured from the financing round were earmarked to further the advancement of Neurona's pipeline of wholly-owned, off-the-shelf cell therapies across various indications.

Schroders said the lead investigational candidate, NRTX-1001, was currently under evaluation in an ongoing open-label, single-arm phase one and two clinical trial for the treatment of drug-resistant mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).

Additionally, there was potential for its application in Alzheimer's disease treatment.

In December, Neurona reported positive outcomes from its clinical trials, indicating that NRTX-1001 had been well-tolerated among initial subjects.

The first two subjects continued to experience a significant reduction of over 95% in overall average monthly seizure counts one year after treatment.

Beyond NRTX-1001, Neurona was actively engaged in the preclinical development of three additional cell therapies.

"We are delighted to make another investment as part of the portfolio sub-strategy of backing innovative life science companies at the near-clinical or clinical stage of development," said lead portfolio manager Tim Creed and co-portfolio manager Harry Raikes in a joint statement.

"We believe Neurona is a highly complementary addition to the company's portfolio.

"This funding will help advance Neurona's cell therapies to address unmet needs in chronic neurological disorders and we are encouraged by the strength of the initial clinical data."

At 1233 GMT, shares in Schroders Capital Global Innovation Trust were down 0.11% in London at 12.34p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.