A Southport startup received $1.5 million in venture capital, as it develops drugs to treat type 2 diabetes.
Connecticut Innovations Inc. and Stonehenge Investors led the funding round for Thetis Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., whose founders say their therapy for the first time offers prospects for addressing the high incidence of cardiovascular complications in type 2 diabetic and pre-diabetic patients.
The company hopes to begin clinical trials next year with its lead drug candidate.
In type 1 diabetes, which accounts for between 5 percent and 10 percent of all cases, the body”™s immune system attacks pancreatic cells, requiring insulin treatments. The more prevalent type 2 diabetes is the result of a disorder in which cells do not use insulin properly.
In a March report, the Connecticut Department of Public Health said 186,000 Connecticut adults have diabetes, about 7 percent of the population; and another 93,000 adults are believed to have the disease but as yet are undiagnosed. In 2008, 618 people in Connecticut died of the disease. Hospitals billed $128 million that year for diabetes care, not including another $46 million for amputations of lower limbs and other procedures the direct result of diabetes.
According to Thetis, diabetes treatments represent the pharmaceutical industry”™s fastest growing market. Other Fairfield County companies focused on diabetes include Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., which in May secured Food and Drug Administration approval to sell its Tradjenta treatment for type 2 diabetes, in conjunction with Eli Lilly; and Biodel Inc., which raised $30 million last May in a sale of stock as it works with the Food and Drug Administration to get its lead insulin drug candidate through clinical trials. And in Westport, dLife provides programming to help patients on dietary recommendations and other challenges of living life with diabetes.
Thetis co-founder Frank Sciavolino is a veteran of New York City-based Pfizer Inc., which in the past year moved some of its diabetes research functions from its massive Groton facility to Cambridge, Mass.
Sciavolino previously worked on the blockbuster Pfizer drug Celebrex, which is prescribed to alleviate symptoms of arthritis and similar ailments.
Multiple other individual investors also contributed to the Thetis funding, after the state qualified investments in Thetis as eligible for tax credits under an angel investment tax program. To date, 15 Fairfield County startups have qualified for investments under the program.
