LUDWIGSHAFEN & HEIDELBERG, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG, a drug discovery and development company headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany, today announced the closure of its Series C financing round with a volume of 6 M € (7,8 M USD) bringing the total amount of funds raised to 17,2 M € (22,4 M USD).

"Although we were not in a need for fresh money we convinced our investors to contribute these additional funds which are earmarked to go into our very promising new research program in RORgt / autoimmune diseases", explains Thomas Hoffmann, CFO of Phenex. "Another part of the 6 M € will be invested into our ongoing FXR program where we plan to take our compound Px-102 up to a Phase IIa proof of concept clinical study."

Dr. Claus Kremoser, CEO, complements: "We have been quite successful in our novel RORgt project. RORgt is a nuclear receptor which was recently discovered to be critically involved in the development of so-called T_H17 cells. T_H17 cells are the "bad guys" in the development of autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Psoriasis and many others. Phenex is the first company worldwide to have discovered inhibitors for RORgt which show high effectivity in ablating the pro-inflammatory T_H17 response. This opens a new avenue towards the development of small molecule therapeutics for this entire class of diseases with the perspective of reduced side effects."

Dr. Mathias Boehringer, member of Phenex´ Supervisory Board confirms: "What we have observed is that Phenex has picked up novel research ideas such as FXR agonists for metabolic and liver diseases or RORgt inhibitors for autoimmune diseases and has been amongst the first companies worldwide to turn these ideas into concrete compound development programs with very good preclinical results. We, as private investors from the Boehringer family, are glad to invest into this company which is a nearly perfect and commercially very promising showcase for an effective approach in Translational Medicine."

Download the full version of this press release from www.phenex-pharma.com