Banking & Finance  November 10, 2015

MiRagen Therapeutics raises $41M Series C funding to initiate clinical trials

BOULDER — Biopharmaceutical company miRagen Therapeutics Inc., announced on Tuesday that the company has raised a $41 million Series C funding round that will help the company advance its first two drug candidates to clinical trials later this year.

The move into human clinical trials marks a major milestone for the Boulder-based company, which was founded in 2007 and is focused on the discovery and development of innovative microRNA-targeting therapies for various diseases, including cancer, fibrosis and heart disease.

The new funding round comes just about a week after miRagen expanded to occupy the entirety of 6200 Lookout Road in Gunbarrel, where the company is headquartered. The expansion — to roughly 26,000 square feet — gives the company nearly double the space it had in the building previously, though a smaller office down the street was also consolidated into the headquarters site.

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MiRagen CEO William Marshall said in a phone interview that the company, which has just fewer than 40 employees, will be adding to its headcount as clinical trials ramp up, but said he couldn’t put a specific figure on the growth.

“We’re in good shape in terms of a facility,” Marshall said.

Marshall said the new funding round will allow the company to operate its projected plan into the third quarter of 2017, with preparations for an initial public offering to begin in 2016 as clinical data is generated.

“We will be in a favorable position to move to IPO in 2016 using this financing event,” Marshall wrote, noting that the exact timing of an IPO would depend on the data generated and public market conditions.

MRL Ventures, an investment arm of Merck, and JAFCO Co., led the Series C round, with new investors Brace Pharma Capital and MP Healthcare Venture Management joining in along with existing investors Atlas Venture, Boulder Ventures, Remeditex Ventures and Amgen Ventures. Joshua Resnick, president of MRL Ventures, will join miRagen’s board of directors.

The pre-revenue company has now raised a total of $72 million in venture capital.

Marshall said the first two drug candidates slated for Phase 1 clinical trials “offer potentially transformative therapies for patients who suffer from hematological malignancies and pathological fibrosis.”

MicroRNAs are short pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) native to all human cells that act as regulators of gene expression. In certain disease states, their over- or under-expression can drive characteristics of the disease.

MiRagen’s research works to identify microRNAs that have the potential to be causative to disease state and normalize the microRNA levels by inhibiting their over-expression or boosting them in the case of under-expression.

MiRagen drug candidate MRG-106 targets a microRNA implicated in a range of non-Hodgkins lymphomas and leukemias. MRG-201, a collaboration with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, targets several types of pathological fibrosis in which microRNA-29 is under-expressed.

While MRG-106 and MRG-201 will be miRagen’s first into clinical trials, the company has other similar drugs in development, as well as a collaboration and license agreement with French company Servier to look at microRNAs in heart failure.

The new funding will largely be used to support the clinical work that will be carried out for MRG-106 and MRG-201, as well as the manufacture of the drugs. The Phase 1 studies are aimed at primarily testing safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetics.

“Evidence is increasingly pointing to the potential of microRNAs as potential targets for therapeutic intervention,” Resnick, the MRL Ventures president, said in a prepared statement.   “I look forward to working with the miRagen leadership team to advance the company’s portfolio of product candidates.”

BOULDER — Biopharmaceutical company miRagen Therapeutics Inc., announced on Tuesday that the company has raised a $41 million Series C funding round that will help the company advance its first two drug candidates to clinical trials later this year.

The move into human clinical trials marks a major milestone for the Boulder-based company, which was founded in 2007 and is focused on the discovery and development of innovative microRNA-targeting therapies for various diseases, including cancer, fibrosis and heart disease.

The new funding round comes just about a week after miRagen expanded to occupy the entirety of 6200 Lookout Road in Gunbarrel, where…

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