Antibiotic research company spun-off by Sandoz
Venture capital fund company Global Life Science Ventures (GLSV) has launched Nabriva GmbH, a specialist antibiotic research and development company that has existed until now within Sandoz GmbH as the Vienna-based Antibiotic Research Institute (ABRI).
Venture capital fund company Global Life Science Ventures (GLSV) has launched Nabriva GmbH, a specialist antibiotic research and development company that has existed until now within Sandoz GmbH as the Vienna-based Antibiotic Research Institute (ABRI).
GLSV is investing Euro 6m in a Series A financing round totalling €42m, as part of a syndicate led by Nomura and also including Wellcome, HBM and Novartis Bioventures.
ABRI was originally founded in 2001 with the objective of discovering and developing new antibiotic compounds. With Sandoz's recent strategic reorientation as the generics company within Novartis, it was decided to spin off ABRI and allow the late-preclinical stage company to develop outside of the Sandoz structure.
Nabriva will focus on the development of small molecule antibiotics for use in community and hospital infections. GLSV says Nabriva has a strong pipeline of antibacterial drugs including three late preclinical projects and one product about to enter Phase 1 clinical trials. All the projects are based on families of small molecules with known antibiotic activity.
Dr Peter Reinisch, partner at GLSV, said: 'Our decision to support Nabriva is based on the great promise of their proprietary compounds, addressing the huge anti-infectives market. With the increasing threat posed by resistant strains, Nabriva's pipeline has sig-nificant advantages over existing antibacterials'.