Elcelyx Therapeutics Raises $4M to Treat Obesity and Diabetes

After two years of maintaining a low profile, San Diego’s Elcelyx Therapeutics says it has secured a $4 million extension on its Series B round of private equity financing. The startup, which is focused on treatments for obesity and diabetes, has been developing compounds to boost the signal along the appetite-control pathway that tells your brain you’re gut is full.

Elcelyx still wants to raise an additional $3 million, and says its existing investors Morgenthaler Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Technology Partners all participated in the extension. The latest $4 million brings overall funding at Elcelyx to $20 million.

The company says the extra funding will be used to support late-stage clinical trials for its proprietary blend of “generally recognized as safe” dietary ingredients (Lovidia) for use in nutritional supplements, and other food and beverage products. Elcelyx says its product increases the body’s production of natural satiety and gluco-regulatory gut hormones twofold.

Elcelyx also has been working with a delayed release formulation of generic metformin HCL (NewMet) for treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Elcelyx says its technology includes first-in-class “Gut Sensory Modulators (GSM)” that intensify the body’s natural food-driven signals that trigger a sense of fullness and facilitate glucose regulation. The company says its approach also reduces nausea and vomiting that some diabetic patients experience while on metformin.

In a separate statement, Elcelyx named former Mpex Pharmaceuticals executive Mark Wiggins as senior vice president of business development. The company also said former Amylin CEO Ginger Graham was elected to its board of directors.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.