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San Jose Mercury News
Compiled by Jack Davis from company reports
14 March 2008
[Excerpt]
TransOral Pharmaceuticals raised $40 million in a fourth venture round led by New Enterprise Associates that included follow-on investments by New Leaf Venture Partners, Montreux Equity Partners, InterWest Partners, Hamilton BioVentures, Vivo Ventures and Peninsula Equity Partners. The company has raised $71 million since its founding in 2002.
The money will support the company's new drug application for its lead product candidate, a tablet that dissolves under the tongue intended for use by people who wake up at night and have trouble returning to sleep.
The National Institutes of Health has estimated that about 30 percent of Americans suffer from disturbed sleep, according to TransOral's Web site. About 35 percent of these patients suffer from difficulty falling back to sleep, for which TransOral says there is no approved therapy.
The company believes its treatment can reduce patient exposure to hypnotic drugs, because its dosage is less than 30 percent of the typical dose of most prescription sleeping pills. The drug would be used only when needed after middle-of-the-night awakening, rather than taken at the beginning of the night. And TransOral's treatment stays at therapeutic levels for three to four hours, compared with eight hours for other medications.
The Richmond company has 28 employees.