Developing transformative drugs for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension

Morphogen-IX is a spin out company from the University of Cambridge based on the work of Professor Nick Morrell and his team from the Department of Medicine at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, set up to develop a potentially transformative disease modifying treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

Founder: Professor Nick Morrell
CIC oversight: Robert Tansley
Year of investment: 2015

Investment thesis

  • Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension is a life-threatening condition for which there are currently no disease modifying pharmacotherapies.
  • Based on 15 years of research, Prof Morrell and his team identified a novel approach to address deficiencies in a key receptor with a protein engineered variant of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP-9) with the potential to positively impact the cause of the condition

Outcome

  • In February 2021, Morphogen-IX was acquired in a share exchange by Centessa Pharmaceuticals (www.centessa.com), a multi-asset R&D company which raised $250 million to further the R&D of its pipeline of assets
  • In May 2021, Centessa raised a further $330 million in an IPO on Nasdaq