Amphix Bio, a company spun out from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, developing a new platform technology, Supramolecular Therapeutic Peptides (STPs), announced on Thursday the initial closing of a USD12.5m seed financing round.

This brings the total dilutive and non-dilutive funds raised by the company to USD18m.

Raised from a syndicate of investors, the funding is intended to advance Amphix Bio's lead therapeutic candidates toward human clinical trials and expand its pipeline to target additional neurological conditions.

Amphix Bio recently secured Orphan Drug Designation for AMFX-200, its lead neurological candidate, for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury (SCI). The company also completed a Type C meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), receiving constructive feedback on preclinical safety studies and clinical trial design. In addition, Amphix Bio's drug-device combination product for the treatment of degenerative disc disease, AMFX-100, received Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA.