NEW YORK – Norwegian pharma company Hemispherian on Tuesday raised NOK 12.5 million ($1.4 million) in a seed funding round.
The oversubscribed funding round was led by Dutch investment firm Meneldor, who partnered with Norwegian and American investors. With the funding, Paul Lelieveld, founding partner at Meneldor; Wolfram Eichner, partner at Apus Capital; and Frode Vartdal of the University of Oslo have joined Hemispherian's board.
The funding will support the company's drug development activities with the goal to expand its preclinical pipeline and move its lead programs toward clinical development.
Oslo-based Hemispherian is developing drugs targeting DNA damage response pathways. The drugs address the depletion of DNA base 5‑hydroxymethylcytosine in cancers by restoring the activity of the TET2 enzyme, which activates DNA damage response.
Its lead preclinical candidate, GLIX1, is being studied as a treatment for glioblastoma multiforme. Hemispherian also has three other DNA damage response drugs in earlier stages of preclinical development and is developing a companion diagnostic tool to identify patients who would have the best therapeutic response to GLIX1.