27th October, 2010 - Company developing disease modifying compounds for CNS disorders – Index Ventures, a leading venture capital firm, announced the incorporation and Series A financing of Mind-NRG. The new Company, based in Switzerland, is devoted to the development of NRG-101, a peptidic neurotrophic factor with disease modifying potential that crosses the blood-brain barrier by a receptor-mediated transport to reach its target. Index Ventures has allocated up to € 10m to Mind-NRG, with € 1.5m invested at the start to generate further key data.NRG-101 will be developed to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Mind-NRG will initially focus on conducting pivotal in vitro and in vivo experiments to further explore the mechanism of action of the peptide and to assess the activity of NRG-101 in a variety of relevant disease models.
Michèle Ollier, partner at Index Ventures and Chairman of the new company commented: “The investment into Mind-NRG is based on the asset-centric model that Index Ventures has pioneered, in line with our focus on highly innovative, science driven therapeutic projects.”
ProteoSys – a Mainz, Germany based research company, focused on proteomics and system biology – has developed and validated NRG-101 over the last years and has assigned NRG-101 to Mind-NRG in exchange for equity in the newly formed company. “We are very excited to have formed such a strong team in order to exploit the potential of NRG-101” said Helmut Matthies, CEO of ProteoSys... [PDF] Mind-NRG's Press Release -
