Lyndra raises $55m for long-acting drug delivery capsule

Lyndra Therapeutics said today that it raised $55 million in a Series B round to support the development of its oral drug delivery system.

All of the investors from the company’s $23 million Series A round resubscribed for the Series B round, Lyndra reported. New investors included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Lyndra’s oral drug delivery capsule is designed to provide sustained release of one or more drugs for up to a week. The star-shaped device opens once it reaches the user’s stomach and eventually leaves the body via the gastrointestinal tract.

The Watertown, Mass.-based company plans to use the newly-acquired funds to support its Phase II trial program, early-stage pipeline and manufacturing efforts.

Lyndra is slated to submit an IND for a long-acting schizophrenia pill to the FDA in 2019, with the hopes of kicking off a Phase II trial in 2020.

“The diversity and caliber of our investors, including those who joined this round, speaks to the importance of addressing unmet therapeutic need,” co-founder & CEO Amy Schulman said in prepared remarks.

“I am proud of the speed with which the Lyndra team has moved from demonstrating feasibility to the clinic, and now we are well positioned to initiate additional Phase I clinical trials and continue our progress toward Phase II clinical trials,” Schulman added.

“Lyndra’s long-acting therapies have the potential to address a diversity of disease states,” co-founder Robert Langer said. “The ability to move from daily to weekly administration of an oral drug is groundbreaking. I believe Lyndra’s long-acting oral pill will be truly transformative.”

In November, Lyndra reported positive results from a pharmacokinetics study of its once-weekly drug-delivery capsule, touting that it successfully transitioned a once-daily therapy to a weekly dosage form.

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