Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, a venture capital-backed startup focused on cardiovascular disease, has raised $28 million in new venture capital financing.
The company confirmed the funding today. Last week, Cardioxyl filed an SEC notice that disclosed general details of the deal.
The Series B round was led by OrbiMed Advisors,
A new investor, Osage University Partners, also participated.
Previous investors New Enterprise Associates and The Aurora Funds joined the round as well.
As part of the deal, Peter Thompson and Anthony Johnson of OrbiMed join the Cardioxyl board. Both hold MDs and are partners in the investment firm.
“OrbiMed has a strong track record of identifying innovative and successful companies within the healthcare industry. The firm’s commitment, along with that of Osage, NEA and Aurora, creates an outstanding investor syndicate,” said Chris Kroeger, MD, the chief executive officer of Cardioxyl.
“We are also very pleased to welcome Peter Thompson and Tony Johnson to the Cardioxyl board,” he added. “Their extensive drug development and leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry will be invaluable as we advance HNO drug candidates to help improve the health and quality of life for patients with heart failure.”
Thompson is an inventor who participated in several patented discoveries and a board-certified internist and oncologist.
“Cardioxyl’s HNO donor programs represent a unique and highly differentiated approach to treating heart failure, with a significant body of human clinical experience,” Thompson said . “I look forward to joining the Cardioxyl Board and helping to advance this novel therapy for a devastating disease that has seen little innovation in clinical practice over the past decade.”
Johnson is a former GlaxoSmithKline executive and is board certified in internal medicine, geriatric medicine, and clinical pharmacology.
“Cardioxyl has an exciting opportunity to impact heart failure, a disease with a high degree of unmet medical need,” Johnson said. “The pharmacological effects anticipated from an HNO donor, namely improved cardiac relaxation, combined with enhanced cardiac contractility and peripheral vasodilation, can address a broad spectrum of the physiologic abnormalities observed in this disorder.”
The company said in at SEC filing that it closed on $28,050,000 in equity funding on Oct. 24.
The filing cites five unnamed investors as funding the round.
Utilizing technology developed at Johns Hopkins University, Cardioxyl raised $10 million in 2010 and $9 million in 2009.
The lead compound, CXL-1020, is intended as a treatment for acute decompensated heart failure, or ADHF. It’s the top hospitalization cause for patients over 65 years of age.
A year ago, Caridoxyl published a report noting that “CXL-1020’s safety and tolerability in people who have stable congestive heart failure (CHF), a good predictor of safety in people with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF)” in clinical trials.
Cardioxyl backers include Aurora Funds, which is based in the Triangle, and New Enterprise Associates.
“We believe that CXL-1020 is the only cardiovascular product in development that provides the ideal balance of blood vessel dilation combined with direct enhancement of cardiac diastolic and systolic function,” said Kroeger when the company announced the launched of a Phase 2 clinical trial.
