Innerva Pharmaceuticals closes 2.3 million Euro round led by Inveready to develop a First in Class drug candidate for ocular surface pain.

The same entrepreneur/investor tandem intends to replicate their success with
Avizorex Pharma (“AVX Pharma”), acquired by Aerie Pharmaceuticals in 2019 at a
potential multiple of over 30x investment

• Innerva Pharmaceuticals develops a novel drug candidate for Ocular Surface Pain
• The financing will allow the company to develop a technology licensed from the
• University of Tennessee Research Foundation towards human safety & efficacy clinical trials

Barcelona, 31 October 2022. Innerva Pharmaceuticals (Innerva), a company developing a new drug candidate for the treatment of ocular pain associated with dry eye disease and other ocular surface diseases, has closed a €2,300,000 round led by the venture capital firm Inveready, through the Inveready Biotech III Fund.

Innerva was founded in Barcelona in 2022 by Patrick Tresserras, serial biotech entrepreneur and Professor Carlos Belmonte, Emeritus Professor of Human Physiology at the Institute of Neurosciences of San Juan de Alicante. Innerva has immediately closed a round with funding from Inveready, the entrepreneurs and business angels who also invested in AVX Pharma.
The funds will be used to develop an ophthalmic formulation with a novel mode of action for ocular surface pain. The drug candidate, which Innerva licensed from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, has shown promising results in animal models, and works by blocking PIEZO2, an ion channel in the nerve endings of mechanosensitive nociceptor neurons on the ocular surface to reduce pain. The financing obtained, together with a strategy of seeking non dilutive funding to align the interests of shareholders, will allow the development of the new product candidate towards clinical trials. The strategy is very similar to the path already followed by the shareholders at AVX Pharma between 2014 and 2019.
AVX Pharma, was founded in 2013 and invested by Inveready in 2014, which remained the sole professional investor. AVX Pharma developed the product candidate AVX-012 (currently AR-15512), a first-in-class drug candidate for dry eye disease discovered by Prof. Belmonte at the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (Universidad Miguel Hernández and Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas). The team developed the drug achieving results in a multicenter Phase 2a clinical trial that included more than 100 patients from all over Spain. The data obtained regarding tolerability and efficacy allowed AVX Pharma to be acquired by the US company Aerie Pharmaceuticals in 2019, for a multiple that represented a potential return of more than 30 times the amount invested by Inveready, not including royalties on product sales. Aerie has initiated two Phase 3 registrational clinical studies this year, after successfully completing a previous Phase 2b study in 2021 and expects to submit a marketing authorisation application in 2024.

Ocular surface pain and dry eye disease continue to be an unmet medical need, and novel
pharmacological therapies with a mechanism of action specifically directed to address pain in an effective manner, such as the one proposed by Innerva, are highly needed. Dry eye disease is a multifactorial disease characterized by a loss of homeostasis of the tear film, inflammation, and accompanied by ocular symptoms such as ocular pain. Dry eye disease affects to more than 10% of the world’s population and the annual market is estimated at 2,000 million US Dollars, although less than 10% of diagnosed patients are on pharmacological therapy, due to the lack of effective therapies directed to symptoms. In many cases, the symptoms of ocular pain disproportionately outweigh the clinical signs in dry eye patients, due to and injury or dysfunction in the somatosensory system. Current treatment options consist of ocular lubricants, prescription anti-inflammatories, and nasal tear secretion stimulants, which have limitations primarily in symptoms management, tolerability, and onset of action.
In addition, Innerva novel therapeutic approach will address other classes of ocular pain, such as post surgical ocular pain and chronic ocular surface pain, whose treatment is currently limited to the use of short-term corticosteroids and local anesthetics, with the associated safety risks and limitations of use.

An estimated 4.5 million cataract and refractive surgeries are performed each year in the United States alone. Patrick Tresserras, CEO of Innerva comments: “We believe that ocular surface pain is an unmet need, and the trust once again from Inveready and other investors in Innerva, reinforces our mission to continue driving ophthalmic innovation and proposing new mechanisms of action that potentially could help millions of people suffering from pain associated with diseases of the ocular surface”.

“We are thrilled to be able to invest again in a project led by one of the best entrepreneurs in the biotech sector in Europe, Patrick, and a prolific researcher and key opinion leader, Carlos. A few years ago, this was unthinkable and today it is a reality that demonstrates the maturity that the biotech sector is acquiring in Spain. With this investment we want to continue developing new first-in-class medicines for dry eye and eye pain patients and again create value for our investors”, says Sara Secall, Partner of Inveready.

The transaction has been advised by DWF-RCD. Hoffmann Eitle and Dinsmore.