Forbion Leads €17m Series C Financing of OMEICOS Therapeutics

Forbion invests €12.5m from its recently launched Forbion IV fund

OMEICOS is pioneering the development of stable analogs of omega-3 fatty acid metabolites for Cardiovascular Disease and Ophthalmology

Forbion, a leading European life science venture capital firm, today announces that it has led a €17m Series C financing of OMEICOS Therapeutics GmbH, a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Berlin, Germany.

Forbion is the only new investor participating in the financing round, contributing €12.5m from its recently launched Forbion IV Fund. Existing OMEICOS investors, Vesalius Biocapital II S.A. SICAR, Remiges BioPharma Fund, SMS Group GmbH, KFW Group, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin, High-Tech Gründerfonds and The Falck Revocable Trust participated in the financing.

OMEICOS is developing first-in-class small molecule therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular and ophthalmic diseases. Epoxyeicosanoids are naturally occurring, but metabolically unstable, metabolites of omega-3 fatty acids that can activate anti-inflammatory, anti-arrhythmic and cardio protective pathways in heart cells. OMEICOS’ first-in-class small molecules are metabolically robust, synthetic analogs of epoxyeicosanoids. These can be administered orally and have shown improved biological activity and pharmacokinetic properties compared to their natural counterparts.

In July OMEICOS announced that a Phase I safety and tolerability study for its lead compound, OMT-28, designed for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, met its primary endpoint and that it intends to accelerate initiation of a Phase II trial.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of heart arrhythmia affecting an estimated 33.5 million people around the world (Circulation, 2013). Incidence is expected to increase over the next decade as life expectancy increases.

The proceeds from this round will finance PROMISE-AF, a placebo controlled, double-blinded, randomized, dose finding Phase II study on OMT-28 in maintenance of sinus rhythm after electrical cardioversion in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation.