While the final frontier of Alzheimer’s disease work is patrolled by U.S. Big Pharmas like Eli Lilly and Biogen as well as Japan’s Eisai, the U.K. is sending out its own mission in the form of AstronauTx.
The London-based biotech was spun out from a family of specialized VC funds called the Dementia Discovery Fund in 2019, securing seed funding from University College London’s Technology Fund and the UK Future Fund. The company has been tasked with developing new drugs to correct the disrupted physiology of the brain, including partly through improving the support function of plentiful brain cells called astrocytes.
Novartis Venture Fund led the series A funding of $48 million ($61 million) with fellow Big Pharma Bristol Myers Squibb jumping on board alongside Brandon Capital, EQT Life, MPM Capital and the Dementia Discovery Fund.
“We now know that the processes causing Alzheimer’s and other similar diseases are modifiable,” AstronauTx co-founder Ruth McKernan said in the release. “Progress towards a compendium of new drugs against these devastating diseases is thankfully well underway.”
AstronauTx will work on oral drugs that could have uses across “multiple neurodegenerative conditions” as well as in combo with other drugs currently in late-stage development, McKernan added. The company has already secured its first partnership in the form of a collaboration in July with Danish biotech Saniona to discover new drugs that could modulate a “novel, undisclosed ion channel target.”
The potential of astrocytes in Alzheimer’s treatment has intrigued scientists for a while, with South Korean researchers publishing findings last year that suggested that the urea cycle is switched on in these star-shaped cells in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients to clean up toxic amyloid beta groups and remove them in the form of urea.