Intarcia raises another $215m to support its ITCA 650 drug pump

Intarcia Therapeutics said today that it raised $215 million in a new round of financing to back its ITCA 650 implantable drug pump, designed for treating Type II diabetes, which is slated to launch in late 2017.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company said it expects a “larger 2nd close with additional top-tier investors” in the 4th quarter. Intarcia is looking to raise up to $600 million by the end of the year to support the approval and launch of the device, according to a regulatory filing.

The ITCA 650 pump is a matchstick-sized, miniature osmotic pump designed to deliver the drug exenatide for 1 year. It uses technology from the company’s already-cleared Medici system.

“Intarcia remains focused on building an innovative and important company in the chronic disease space – one dedicated to addressing serious unmet needs by disrupting the shortcomings of the pill and injection model in chronic disease management. Ultimately, our goal is to open up a new pathway of delivering once or twice yearly medicines that fundamentally hold the potential to transform therapeutic and economic outcomes over time for millions of patients, and the healthcare system overall. At our core, our proprietary Medici drug delivery system does this by stabilizing and optimizing the potential of the medicines we develop, enabling the medicine to be delivered just once or twice yearly, and by addressing the massive behavioral challenge of non-adherence with pills and injections that currently impacts the majority of patients in every chronic disease we face. It’s an exciting prospect to create a potentially critical new pathway of delivering important medicines for some of the largest and costliest chronic diseases in the world, where very little progress in overall outcomes has been made. We’re thrilled with the quality and strength of the shareholder base we’re continuing to build for our future, and the ability we collectively have to deliver on our purpose and our mission – improving the lives of millions of patients,” chairman, president & CEO Kurt Graves said in a press release.

The cash will also support “several novel pipeline programs” for major chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, auto-immune disorders and inflammation, the company said.

Intarcia launched the Medici system in June. Earlier in the month, the company and pharmaceuticals maker Numab said they logged several milestones in their joint project to develop a drug-device combination for treating inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.