{"id":8644,"date":"2012-03-19T10:22:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T14:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=8644"},"modified":"2012-03-19T10:23:44","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T14:23:44","slug":"biopharma-company-secures-28m-in-series-b-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=8644","title":{"rendered":"Osteoporosis Drug Developer Secures $28M in Series B Round"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Model<\/a>
(NIH)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tarsa Therapeutics Inc.<\/a>, a Philadelphia-based developer of drugs to treat osteoporosis, has completed $28 million in new series B financing, the second round of funding after initial start-up. The financing package, announced on Friday, is led by a new investor in the company, Foresite Capital<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The funding is expected to support the next commercialization and regulatory steps with the FDA and in Europe, for Tarsa’s drug candidate Ostora, an oral calcitonin tablet for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Calcitonin<\/a> is a naturally occurring hormone that helps regulate calcium levels in the body and can slow the rate of bone-thinning, and usually administered through injection or nasal spray. It can also relieve pain from broken bones or spinal compression fractures.<\/p>\n

Tarsa is conducting clinical trials and commercializing Ostora under a licensing agreement with Unigene Laboratories<\/a> that first developed the drug. Unigene owns 20 percent of Tarsa. James Gilligan<\/a>, a founder of Tarsa, led the initial development of Ostora at Unigene and now serves as Tarsa’s chief scientist.<\/p>\n

Ostora has completed a phase 3 clinical trial<\/a> that tested the oral-administered drug against the current nasal-spray means of administering calcitonin and a placebo. Tarsa says in the trial Ostora met all of the effectiveness targets and demonstrated statistically significant superiority after 48 weeks in increasing bone mineral density of the lumbar spine than a placebo and calcitonin taken as a nasal spray. The drug is also in a current phase 2 study<\/a>, testing against a placebo for its ability to to prevent osteoporosis and maintain bone mass in postmenopausal women.<\/p>\n

Foresite Capital, the company leading the funding round, invests between $10 million and $50 million in late-stage health care enterprises. Foresite’s founder and CEO James Tananbaum will be joining Tarsa’s board. Other participants in the round include current Tarsa investors Novo A\/S, MVM Life Science Partners, and Quaker Partners.<\/p>\n

Read more: Stem Cell Method Developed to Increase Bone Strength<\/a><\/p>\n

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Tarsa Therapeutics Inc., a Philadelphia-based developer of drugs to treat osteoporosis, has completed $28 million in new series B financing, the second round of funding after initial start-up. The financing package, announced on Friday, is led by a new investor in the company, Foresite Capital. The funding is expected to support the next commercialization and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,21,28,74,23,24,84,64,27,19],"class_list":["post-8644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","tag-biomedical","tag-biotech","tag-clinical-trials","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-equity","tag-investment","tag-licensing","tag-life-sciences","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-venture-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8644"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8649,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8644\/revisions\/8649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}