Alvine Pharmaceuticals (the company still has no Web site), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing pharmaceutical products for the treatment of celiac sprue, said it has gotten $21 million in a first round of funding.
This confirms what we’d written about last week, when we mentioned the first $8 million of that total.
Sofinnova Ventures led the investment round with strong support from Prospect Venture Partners and InterWest Partners. Cargill Ventures and Flagship Ventures also participated in the financing.
The company is trying to bring its main product to the human clinical and safety trial phases, said Stanford Professor Chaitan Khosla, Ph.D., who co-founded the company. In a statement, he said Celiac sprue is a serious yet common immune disease that is triggered by gluten, a component of cereal grains found in most foods sold in the U.S.
While under-diagnosed, as many as one in one hundred individuals suffer from celiac sprue, yet there is no drug therapy available, the company says.
Sofinnova Ventures General Partner Nicola Campbell led the deal, and is on the board.
