TORONTO, Oct. 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — AmacaThera Inc. (www.amacathera.ca) is pleased to announce the closing of its US $3.6M seed financing round. A first close of the round was led by Sprout BioVentures/ Viva Biotech with participation from Grey Sky Venture Partners, and the round was recently completed with an investment by Toronto-based Lumira Ventures.

Commenting on the closing of the round, Dr. Molly Shoichet, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of AmacaThera stated: “We are thrilled to have the Lumira team as part of our investor group and look forward to working closely with them and our other investors in executing the company’s business plan.”

“We have followed the evolution of the AmacaThera story for some time and, as a result, we had the opportunity to work closely with Molly, Mike and the rest of the team before our investment. That relationship, and the insights we gained, gave us confidence in their technology, development strategy and the opportunity to develop a novel non-opioid-based product for the treatment of post-surgical pain,” stated Peter van der Velden, Managing General Partner at Lumira Ventures, who has also joined the Company’s board of directors.

AmacaThera’s goal is to use its proprietary technology to develop injectable and biocompatible hydrogels that can enhance the delivery, targeting and release of a diverse range of therapeutic agents. AmacaThera’s first product, AMT-143, is being developed to improve post-operative pain control thereby reducing or eliminating opioid use following surgery.

Mike Cooke, AmacaThera’s Co-Founder and CEO added, “We are thankful for the support of our investors. This capital will allow us to advance our drug delivery platform technology into clinical trials in 2020.”

About AmacaThera

AmacaThera is focused on the commercialization of a hydrogel platform for sustained drug release. AmacaThera’s propriety hydrogel technology can be combined with therapeutic agents to form a product, which can be injected into a tissue to localize the therapeutics to the injection site. AmacaThera’s first product is aimed at sustained post-operative pain relief to reduce the need for opioids and to provide superior pain relief. AmacaThera was nurtured in Dr. Shoichet’s laboratory with assistance from numerous accelerators, including the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto Early Stage Technology, the Ontario Biosciences Innovation Organization (OBIO), TIAP (formerly MaRS Innovation), and the U of T Innovations & Partnership Office. AmacaThera is currently a resident company at the Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS incubator (JLABS @ Toronto).

About Sprout BioVentures and Viva Biotech

Sprout BioVentures and Viva Biotech are focused on propelling high-potential companies from idea to value creation. With a particular emphasis on seed-stage investments, Sprout BioVentures and Viva Biotech leverage proprietary technology and nimble incubator resources to efficiently de-risk drug discovery efforts.

About Grey Sky Venture Partners

Grey Sky Venture Partners is an early-stage investment fund providing capital and intellectual property to passionate entrepreneurs building innovative, next-generation life sciences companies that will create an impact in the complex and rapidly changing healthcare system.

About Lumira Ventures

Lumira Ventures is Canada’s largest and most active healthcare venture capital firm. Lumira invests in best-in-class North American companies developing innovative therapeutics and medical technologies whose products offer transformative improvements to patient health outcomes and/or meaningful reductions to the overall cost of healthcare delivery. Lumira executes a proven and differentiated investment strategy and as a lead investor is an active partner to its portfolio companies as they develop, commercialize and deliver their products to patients. Since inception, Lumira’s portfolio companies have brought 40+ new therapies to market, impacting the lives of 1 billion patients globally, generating $65+ billion in cumulative revenue.

SOURCE AmacaThera