Latigo Biotherapeutics, a non-opioid pain biotech looking to ride the waves created by Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ pain drug approval last month, is targeting up to $150 million in a new funding round, according to a new SEC
filing
on Friday.
The filing, which outlines a $50 million raise so far, comes a year to the day after the Los Angeles-area biotech
emerged with $135 million
from Westlake, Foresite, 5AM Ventures and Corner Ventures.
Latigo has been busy since then. The startup recruited a new CEO, hired a chief medical officer, appointed a former analyst as its finance chief, added leaders from its investors Westlake and Foresite to its board, started another Phase 1 trial and named former Horizon CEO Tim Walbert as its board chair.
“We’re a biotech; we’re always raising money. That’s definitely the conversation that we’re having. We have a great syndicate, but we are also always in conversations to raise additional capital,” CEO Nima Farzan told
Endpoints News
on the sidelines of the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last month.
A Latigo spokesperson confirmed the filing outlines a new funding round.
Also in its favor was last month’s
landmark FDA approval
for a non-opioid pain medicine that will be marketed as Journavx by Vertex. And another similar pain biotech, called SiteOne Therapeutics, revealed a
$100 million Series C
in December.
“It’s nice sometimes to follow on the heels of good companies and not be first and learn from others and, in theory, create a very differentiated opportunity for the company, its patients and investors,” board member Nancy Stagliano
told
Endpoints at the time of launch in February 2024.
Vertex, SiteOne and Latigo are targeting the NaV sodium channel with the hopes of creating non-addictive acute and chronic pain medications. Vertex’s drug blocks NaV1.8, as do Latigo’s lead programs.
Latigo’s LTG-001 is in Phase 2 and LTG-305 is in Phase 1. It has more programs in the works.
The Phase 2 is testing LTG-001 in patients with acute dental pain after wisdom teeth extraction, Farzan said in the January interview.
“We think there are a number of areas that a next-generation drug can improve upon, and the [Vertex] label will also help guide that,” Farzan said.
“But we certainly have our hypotheses from the clinical trials that they’ve run about what are the areas that you would look to improve on in a next-generation, fast follower. In particular, onset of action, for example,” he added. “Certainly, I’m interested, too, in what Vertex does in patient advocacy and government affairs to create momentum. We probably shouldn’t be using opioids for low-risk procedures.”
At the time, Farzan said the company could likely run late-stage acute pain trials with in-house expertise, but might look to a partnership as it gets further into development and commercialization for chronic pain.