Investors poured $31.5 million into the coffers of veterinary drug developer Nexvet Biopharma, an Australian company that is researching medications that could be used to treat feline and canine pain and canine atopic dermatitis. The closing of the Series B, or second, round of financing was announced Wednesday. The proceeds are intended to assist Nexvet's work on monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), or identical copies of antibodies, and expand the company's product line and U.S. operations. In development are drugs code-named NV-01, NV-02 and NV-06/08. They are designed to treat, respectively, canine pain, feline pain and chronic inflammatory diseases in dogs, such as atopic dermatitis. Pivotal trials are scheduled over the next 18 months for all three indications. A placebo-controlled study of a single injection of NV-01 in osteoarthritic dogs demonstrated four weeks of sustained pain relief and no adverse events, the company reported. Addressing shareholders and new investors, Nexvet CEO Mark Heffernan said the funding “serves as a major milestone, allowing us to expand our research and development team and greatly aiding our work to make mAbs available for the global companion animal health market, where there remains a large unmet medical need.” Nexvet’s proprietary PETisation platform technology translates monoclonal antibodies between any species in a single step, according to the company.
