SemaThera secures US $2M seed funding from Senju and AmorChem

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By Ted Liu

SemaThera Inc., a company formed and controlled by AmorChem, L.P., has raised US $2 million in additional seed funding from Senju Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and AmorChem.

AmorChem, L.P., a $41.2 million seed and early stage fund, launched SemaThera in October 2016 with a $1 million seed funding.

Established in 1947, Osaka, Japan based Senju Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., is a leading company that develops, manufactures, and commercializes a variety of innovative products on a global basis, specializing in ophthalmic preparations.

SemaThera intends to use new funding for the development of its lead candidate, ST-102, in preparation for a clinical trial application in diabetic macular edema (DME).

As part of this financing, SemaThera also signed an exclusive option of license with Senju. Under the terms of the agreement, Senju acquired the option rights to exclusively develop and market SemaThera’s ST-102 in China and Japan as an intravitreal injection for DME. Senju would assume all clinical development costs and regulatory fees related to China and Japan. In exchange for these rights, Senju would pay SemaThera milestone payments with a total in eight-digit, and a two-digit percent royalty on sales. Senju would also have exclusive rights to other indications in China and Japan.

SemaThera proposes a novel therapeutic approach, which is a bispecific biological trap, inhibiting both semaphorin 3A (SEMA 3A) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF).

“The compiled preclinical package demonstrated that SEMA 3A inhibition is key to treat the pathology at an early stage, where expression of SEMA 3A is significantly high and VEGF is at normal levels,” said Mitsuyoshi Azuma, Ph.D., Senior Corporate Officer, Head of Laboratory of Ocular Science, Senju (Board Member).

“In addition to its seed investment in SemaThera, Senju is a strategic ophthalmology-focused partner for SemaThera, in view of the clinical development of ST-102 in China and Japan. An increasing prevalence of diabetes is occurring in these two countries where DME cases are on the rise,” said Elizabeth Douville, founder and Managing Partner, AmorChem.

SemaThera has appointed John G. Clement, Ph.D. as Executive Vice-President, Business Development. John brings a solid expertise in business and drug development around underserved ocular and infectious diseases, with his past experience at iCo Therapeutics (2005-2011) and QLT Inc (2000-2005). He will also remain Venture Partner at AmorChem.

photo credit: SemaThera