Image: Nutriband
Founded by Dubliner Gareth Sheridan, Nutriband listed on Nasdaq in October 2021. Now, its flagship opioid patch product is a step closer to getting FDA approval.
Irish-founded pharma start-up Nutriband has raised $8.4m in a stock sale to complete clinical development and regulatory work on one of its drug abuse deterrent products.
In an announcement over the weekend, the US-based company said it entered into definitive securities purchase agreements for the purchase and sale of an aggregate of 2.1m shares of common stock at a price of $4 per share of common stock.
Nutriband said that proceeds from the raise will be investment in completing the remaining clinical development of Aversa Fentanyl, which it pitches as a product that has the potential to become the world’s first opioid patch with what it calls “abuse deterrent” properties.
Headquartered in Orlando, Florida, Nutriband was founded by Dubliner Gareth Sheridan and listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in October 2021.
The company, which Sheridan conceptualised while writing his thesis as a student at Technological University Dublin, previously acquired Atlanta-based 4P Therapeutics for $2.25m and Carmel Biosciences for $3.8m.
Now, the latest funding will also be pumped into completing regulatory work with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for marketing approval. According to Nutriband, Aversa Fentanyl could reach peak annual US sales of between $80m and $200m.
“The completion of this private placement should provide sufficient funding through our NDA (new drug application) filing for Aversa Fentanyl with the FDA for marketing approval. This is a significant step for the company as we target this submission in Q1 2025,” said Sheridan.
Sheridan won the Best Young Entrepreneur award in the 2014 Bank of Ireland Start-up Awards and currently serves as the CEO of Nutriband.
Last May, the start-up raised additional funding in a public offering for Aversa Fentanyl and confirmed it is developing a “portfolio of transdermal pharmaceutical products” to deliver already approved drugs that are typically delivered by injection but with the potential to “improve compliance and therapeutic outcomes through transdermal delivery”.
“[Aversa] can be broadly applied to various transdermal products, and our plan is to follow the development of our abuse deterrent fentanyl transdermal system with the development of additional transdermal abuse deterrent products for pharmaceuticals that have a risk or history of abuse,” an SEC filing read at the time.
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