Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners has led a new $15 million investment round in Limerick Biopharma, a drug development company based in South San Francisco. Existing investors Arch Venture Partners, Sevin Rosen Funds, and Altitude Funds also participated in the Series C round. Limerick is a new portfolio company for OVP, and OVP managing director Chad Waite has joined Limerick’s board of directors, which is led by newly named chairman Corey Goodman (the former president of Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center).
Limerick is developing compounds that improve certain drug side effects and clinical outcomes. The drugs work by activating cellular transport pumps to carry other drugs away from tissues where they can have toxic effects. The company’s proprietary molecules can be applied to drug treatments including immunosuppressants, opioids, and immunomodulators, as well as directly targeting metabolic diseases like hypercholesteremia and hyperglycemia.
“Limerick’s novel platform has led to the development of an attractive pipeline of products for metabolic disease, immunosuppression, and mitigation of opiate side effects,” Waite said in a company statement. “The company is now well-positioned to capitalize on this platform and to exploit the commercial potential of its growing library of biochemical activators of cellular transport. Early human trials are quite promising.”
In the past couple of months, OVP has made investments in antibody drug developer Xori (through Seattle-based Accelerator), solar-power efficiency startup Tigo Energy, genetic analysis company NanoString, and healthcare-IT firm Talyst.
