Nuvaira, a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based developer of novel therapeutic medical devices for treating obstructive lung diseases, has raised $79 million in funding led by U.S. Venture Partners. Endeavour Vision, Qiming Venture Partners, Lightstone Ventures and Richard King Mellon Foundation also joined the round along with existing investors Advanced Technology Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, Split Rock Partners, Versant Ventures, Vertex Venture Holdings, and Windham Venture Partners.
“We are thrilled to have such a strong consortium of top-tier investors in this financing, as a clear vote of confidence in our work and the performance of our novel catheter-based system in our Phase 2b randomized, sham-controlled trial in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients,” said Nuvaira CEO Dennis Wahr M.D. in a statement. “These funds will be used to support the pivotal AIRFLOW-3 clinical trial for FDA approval, and to implement a targeted clinical development strategy in key European markets.”
Nuvaira has developed a Lung Denervation System that addresses airway hyper-responsiveness, which is a pathophysiologic underpinning of COPD and asthma in Targeted Lung Denervation (TLD). And Nuvaira’s proprietary technology has demonstrated its safety and feasibility across three clinical studies: IPS-I/II, AIRFLOW-1, and the AIRFLOW-2 sham-controlled randomized clinical trial.
Nuvaira is considered the first interventional pulmonary company to pursue and report one-year randomized, double-blinded and sham-controlled clinical evidence in COPD patients from a Phase 2b trial.
“The rigor of the AIRFLOW-2 trial has set a high standard for the field,” added Dr. Frank Sciurba — who is a Professor of Medicine at UPMC in Pittsburgh and PA and U.S. principal investigator of Nuvaira’s AIRFLOW-3 trial. “We are encouraged by the results of the AIRFLOW-2 trial, and we see TLD potentially filling an unmet need for our COPD patients who continue to have exacerbations while on maximal guideline-based pharmacologic therapy.”
Nuvaira also announced that Lisa Rogan is joining the company as SVP of market development. Logan has over 20 years of medical industry expertise in commercializing disruptive diagnostic and therapeutic technologies along with ten years of experience with interventional pulmonary devices targeting treatment of severe cases of COPD. Currently, the Nuvaira Lung Denervation System is under clinical investigation and is not commercially available in the U.S.
