CNS company Aptinyx raises $65M series A

Aptinyx Inc. (Evanston, Ill.) raised a tranched $65 million series A round led by New Leaf Venture Partners. New investors Frazier Healthcare Partners, Longitude Capital and Osage University Partners also participated alongside existing investors Adams Street Partners, LVP Life Science Ventures, PathoCapital, Goudy Park Capital, Beecken Petty O'Keefe and Northwestern University. Details of the round's tranches are undisclosed.

President and CEO Norbert Riedel told BioCentury that Aptinyx hopes to develop oral small molecule NMDA receptor modulators to treat a range of CNS indications, including neuropathic pain, Parkinson's disease, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Aptinyx spun out of Naurex Inc. in August 2015 with a discovery platform, a preclinical pipeline and several former Naurex executives (see BioCentury Extra, Sept. 16, 2015). ...