– USA, UT – DiscGenics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine, today announced it has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Ci:z Investment with participation from new investors, Eagle Fund SP1 LLP, Medical Incubator Japan, and CareNet of Japan.
Concurrent with this investment, DiscGenics has added Colin Lee Novick (CJ PARTNERS) and Dr. Najeeb Thomas to its Board of Directors.
Major follow-on investments from Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co. Ltd, the Company’s Board of Directors, and existing long-term investors contributed to the oversubscription of the round.
This latest round of funding brings investment in the Company to just over $71 million to-date.
DiscGenics will use the new capital to support ongoing clinical trials of its injectable Discogenic Cell Therapy for lumbar degenerative disc disease, to fund future commercialization activities in the U.S. and Japan, and for the scale-up and scale-out of its allogeneic cell manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City, UT.
“We are extremely pleased and humbled by the interest and support we have received in this round of funding,” said Flagg Flanagan, CEO and Board Chairman. “I would like to sincerely thank the team at DiscGenics for their tremendous efficiency over the past several years in the use of our resources and capital to achieve clinical capacity on two continents while building out our manufacturing facility in preparation for anticipated commercial demand of our product.”
About Colin Lee Novick
Colin Lee Novick is a co-founder and managing director of one of Japan’s leading regenerative medicine consulting firms, CJ PARTNERS, and was selected by Dr. Yoshinori Shirono, founder of Ci:z Investment LLP, the lead Series C investor, to represent his interests on the DiscGenics Board.
Mr. Novick commented: “DDD represents a significant unmet medical need worldwide and is an increasingly prevalent chronic disease among Japan’s rapidly aging population. DiscGenics has developed an innovative biologic approach to treating this condition that both meshes well with the Japanese regulatory focus on regenerative medicines and could very much revolutionize the way chronic low back pain is treated. I am honored to be joining the DiscGenics board to support their clinical and commercial endeavors.”
About Dr Najeeb Thomas
Najeeb Thomas, M.D. is an internationally recognized neurosurgeon who practices at Southern Brain and Spine in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he focuses on the treatment of degenerative diseases of the spine.
Dr. Thomas said: “I have been an investor and supporter of DiscGenics for several years and believe that IDCT represents a truly game-changing opportunity for the treatment of patients with DDD. If IDCT generates similar outcomes in human trials to the preclinical studies, which included reduced inflammation of the intervertebral disc and restoration of disc height, I believe the end result could be reduced pain and disability, which subsequently translates to decreased pain medication usage and ultimately to fewer surgical interventions.”
About DiscGenics
DiscGenics is a privately held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine. As the only company in the world to develop an allogeneic cell therapy derived from intervertebral disc cells to treat diseases of the disc, DiscGenics believes it has a unique opportunity to harness the restorative potential of the human body to heal millions of patients suffering from the debilitating effects of back pain. DiscGenics’ first product candidate, IDCT, is a homologous, allogeneic, injectable cell therapy that utilizes biomedically engineered progenitor cells derived from intervertebral disc tissue, known as Discogenic Cells, to offer a non-surgical, potentially regenerative solution for the treatment of patients with mild to moderate degenerative disc disease.
DiscGenics is conducting two concurrent regulator-allowed, prospective, randomized, double-blinded, controlled, multicenter clinical trials in the U.S. and Japan to evaluate the safety and efficacy of IDCT in subjects with symptomatic, single-level, mild to moderate lumbar DDD. In the U.S., all 60 subjects have been treated and no safety issues have been reported. In Japan, IDCT passed the initial planned safety review and trial enrollment is ongoing.
For more information: https://www.discgenics.com/
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