Angelini Ventures, Angelini Industries’ international venture capital company, founded at the end of 2022 and already active with several investments in the health, industrial technology and consumer goods sectors such as those in Cadence Neuroscience and Nextsense, announces that it has completed two new transactions for a total value of approximately eight million euros.
The first of the two investments that thus open operations in 2024 concerns Noctrix Health, a US startup that has developed the first wearable technological device to treat “restless legs syndrome”, a neurological disorder that causes feelings of discomfort in the lower limbs that occur mainly at night and negatively affect the quality of sleep. The second investment is aimed at COUR Pharmaceuticals, a US-based company that uses advanced nanotechnology to treat autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.
Founded in 2022 with a budget of €300 million, Angelini Ventures has already planned investments of over €80 million in Europe and North America. The current portfolio includes 15 direct investments in startups (5 of which through the Angelini Lumira Biosciences Fund), the creation of two startup studios that promote technology transfer and support for a scientific research project.
Wearable therapies and nanotechnology
Angelini Ventures’ investment in Noctrix Health is part of an overall $40 million Series C round led by Sectoral Asset Management, with new investors Asahi Kasei America, and Resmed, as well as Angelini Ventures itself, and strong support from other investors including OrbiMed, and Treo Ventures.
In particular, the new funding will support the development of Nidra Tonic Motor Activation (TOMAC), the technology created by Noctrix Health, towards its long-awaited launch in the American market. Nidra Tonic Motor Activation involves the use of two bands, to be applied just below the knees, which contain a device capable of stimulating the spinal cord, through electrical impulses, and thus generating a response that activates the muscles in the lower legs and reduces the symptoms of restless leg syndrome.
Nidra is now the first and only treatment approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reduce symptoms and improve sleep quality in adults affected by drug-resistant forms of restless leg syndrome: in particular, Nidra obtained “De Novo” authorization for medical devices from the FDA in early 2023.
On the other hand, the technology developed by COUR Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. biotechnology company specializing in the development, with nanotechnology, of therapies aimed at reprogramming the immune system, is aimed at patients with autoimmune diseases, such as celiac disease and diabetes.
Angelini Ventures’ investment is part of a $105 million Series A round, co-led by Lumira Ventures and Alpha Wave Ventures, with participation from Roche Venture Fund, Pfizer through the Pfizer Breakthrough Growth Initiative, Bristol Myers Squibb and JDRF T1D Fund.
The funding will allow COUR to develop phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, myasthenia gravis, which causes muscle fatigue, and type 1 diabetes. Autoimmune diseases are caused by a reaction of the immune system that mistakenly attacks healthy cells and tissues that perform important functions. The goal of COUR is to bring into the body, through nanoparticles, the very molecules that the body perceives as foreign and dangerous (antigens) to “teach” the immune system to recognize them and not attack them. The special nanotechnologies developed by COUR make it possible to convey a large quantity and variety of antigens into the body without toxic effects, thus increasing the possibility that the immune system learns not to attack them. With this type of technology, COUR has already recorded important clinical results in the field of celiac disease and cholangitis.
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