Rivus Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Charlottesville focused on cardiometabolic health, recently completed a $132 million Series B financing round.
The funding was led by Boston’s RA Capital Management with participation from Boston’s Bain Capital Life Sciences, Switzerland’s BB Biotech AG and existing investors Longitude Capital of Menlo Park, California as well as Medicxi and RxCapital, both based in the U.K.
The new investment brings Rivus’ lifetime funding to $167 million, according to Crunchbase.
Rivus said the financing will support further clinical advancement of lead drug candidate HU6, what it bills as a first-in-class controlled metabolic accelerator, or CMA, designed to treat cardiometabolic diseases.
"While there have been several recent clinical successes in the treatment of obesity, CMAs stand alone in their ability to demonstrate significant fat reduction while sparing muscle mass, a very desirable profile especially in patients with diabetic myopathy and sarcopenia," Derek DiRocco, partner at RA Capital, said in a statement. Rivus said DiRocco is joining its board of directors.
Earlier this year, Rivus completed a phase 2 study that provided validation that CMAs have the potential to treat obesity, but also a range of cardiometabolic diseases including heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, type 2 diabetes and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Rivus recently initiated another phase 2 study of its CMA and said it has two more studies planned for next year.
