SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CiVi Biopharma, a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on creating novel therapies against cardiometabolic diseases, announced today that they have completed a $40M private investment with Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group. 

The proceeds of the financing will be used primarily to fund the completion of pre-clinical and early phase I clinical development of CiVi Biopharma's LNA PCSK-9 drug, which the company recently licensed from F.Hoffmann-La Roche.  In addition, the proceeds will be used for the in-licensing of additional novel drugs to treat cardiometabolic diseases which is the most frequent cause of mortality in the western world and continues to increase.  

In announcing the completion of the series A financing, Founder of CiVi Biopharma, Henrik Ørum, said: "We are delighted with this show of support from Boxer Capital.  This new financing provides the company with sufficient operating capital to pursue our ambitious plans for our lead asset, LNA PCSK9 GalNac, which we believe will become an important new medicine in the treatment of patients with elevated lipid levels."  

Commenting on the investment, Aaron Davis, CEO of Boxer Capital, said: "We are delighted to have the opportunity to finance Henrik and his team as they pursue the development of this unique asset, LNA PCSK9 GalNac. Roche has spent considerable time and money advancing the LNA technology across a range of products internally, and we look forward to advance an asset from this novel class of therapeutics into development. We believe the LNA PCSK9 GalNac candidate will be extremely competitive to currently available therapies on the market and in clinical development."

About CiVi Biopharma Inc.

CiVi Biopharma Inc. is a US-based, privately held biopharmaceutical company, founded in 2016. The company's research and development activities are focused on creating novel therapies against cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The company is incorporated in Delaware and has a wholly owned Danish subsidiary, CiVi Biopharma A/S, which is located in Hørsholm Science Park, Denmark. CiVi Biopharma Inc. recently concluded a $40M series A financing with Boxer Capital of the Tavistock Group.

About Boxer Capital of Tavistock Group

Boxer Capital is the investment firm responsible for Tavistock Group's public and private equity investments in healthcare.  At Boxer Capital, we leverage our internal expertise in evaluating pre-clinical and clinical data to identify investments and generate outsized returns for company founders and employees as well as for our investor the Tavistock Group.  Boxer Capital has a focus on biotechnology drug development companies across multiple therapeutic indications. 

About the LNA PCSK9 GalNac drug candidate

The LNA PCSK-9 drug is based on Roche's proprietary LNA drug technology, which enables scientists to rapidly develop safe and effective drug-candidates against RNA targets, involved in a number of human diseases. The LNA PCSK-9 drug candidate further incorporates Roche's proprietary GalNac targeting technology that directs the payload to the liver.  By using the GalNac technology, the number of injections per year and the cost of the drug may be significantly lower compared to the commercially available antibodies against PCSK-9.

CiVi Biopharma Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements, identified by the use of words such as "believes," "expects," "may," "will," "should", "potential," "anticipates," "plans" or "intends" and similar expressions. Such forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or developments to be materially different from the future results, events or developments indicated in this announcement. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. 

For further information please contact
Henrik Ørum, Founder
Cell.: (+45) 2834 6474
e-mail: henrikoerum@civibiopharma.com  

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SOURCE CiVi Biopharma, Inc.