VarmX bags €32m in Series B round

New investors LSP, Ysios Capital, INKEF Capital and Lundbeckfonden Ventures joined the financing round, with the contribution of existing investors BioGeneration Ventures and InnovationQuarter. VarmX develops oral drugs for the treatment and prevention of severe bleedings in patients taking anticoagulants. The Leiden-based company said, it will use the proceeds to finance first-in-human to Phase IIb proof of concept studies for its lead compound, VMX-C001. Particularly, the proceeds will be used to advance VMX-C001 to registrational studies, accelerate manufacturing trajectory towards commercial scale and expand the company’s discovery platform program.

Currently, a patient population of 10 million patients take oral factor Xa inhibitors as part of a blood anticoagulation therapy. Annually, a subpopulation of 200,000 of this patient group experience spontaneous and life-threatening bleedings. VarmX’s is developing a modified recombinant coagulation factor X for this target group aimed at treating and preventing bleedings in patients who require emergency surgery. According to the company, VMX-C001 – a modified recombinant blood factor X based on the venom of the Australian brown snake (Pseudonaja textilis) can restore the coagulation cascade.