Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Link Medicine lands $40M in Series C round

By Mass High Tech Staff

Neurology-focused biotech Link Medicine Corp. raised $40 million in a Series C round of financing backed by Cambridge-based Clarus Ventures and SV Life Sciences, Link Medicine officials reported. The venture capital firm SV Life Sciences has offices in Boston, London and San Francisco. The capital will be used to bring its disease treatments from the preclinical stage into human trials.

Cambridge-based Link Medicine’s drug platform is based on research in protein misfolding, which is thought to contribute to diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The original research was performed by Peter Lansbury, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and the company’s chief scientific officer. He is also the director of the Morris K. Udall Research Center of Excellence in Parkinson’s Disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Link Medicine was founded in March 2005 and targets the build-up of misfolded neurotoxic proteins in nerve cells. The company is looking to develop treatments for various neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Link Medicine was originally funded by philanthropist Edward Rudman, a previous chairman on the board of trustees of Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. The company has raised $56.5 million in equity so far, from investors including Endurance Investments Limited and Biogen Idec New Ventures.