AstronauTx closes £48m Series A financing

The finanicing round of AstronauTx Ltd was led by the Novartis Venture Fund, with participation of MPM Capital, Brandon Capital, EQT Life Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb and the Dementia Discovery Fund.

AstronauTx said it will use the £48m  Series A financing advance the company’s portfolio of small-molecule drugs, including a clinical study in patients with Alzheimer’s disease for the lead programme. The treatments are expected to provide both symptomatic and disease modifying treatments.

AstronauTx was created by the Dementia Discovery Fund in 2019 with additional seed stage funding from the UCL Technology Fund and the UK Future Fund, with the goal of developing novel drugs to correct the disrupted physiology of the brain, partly through improving the support function of astrocytes, the most abundant cell type in the brain. 

In July 2023, AstronauTx announced a partnership with Saniona, a Danish biotechnology company, to identify new treatments by modulating a novel, undisclosed ion channel target, expanding the company’s portfolio of programmes.  In September 2023, AstronauTx was awarded an Innovate UK grant to fund preclinical work on one of its programmes. 

Our treatments will be oral drugs, applicable across multiple neurodegenerative conditions, and additive with mechanisms that are currently in late-stage development,” said Dr. Ruth McKernan, co-founder of AstronauTx.