Fountain Healthcare backs €9.2m Trino Therapeutics round

The new funding will be used to further develop the company's lead product, PH46A, which is a novel class of drug that Trino aims to produce for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease.

Trino, which span out of Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 2011, has earmarked €2.2m of the capital injection for development and pre-clinical trial testing to ensure good manufacturing practice standards are met. The remaining €7m will be used to carry out first-in-man clinical testing of PH46A and to subsequently finance the phase II trial of the drug.

Fountain Healthcare typically invests €500,000-7m per company with a focus on the life sciences sector, particularly biotechnology, medical devices and speciality pharmaceuticals. The firm recently took part in a €33m series-C round for Irish immunology drug development company Opsona, which, like Trino, is a spinout of TCD.

Previous funding
Wellcome Trust has previously invested in Trino. Other investors in the company include Irish venture capital firm Growcorp and Enterprise Ireland.

Company
Trino, formerly Pharmatrin, was founded in 1999 and span out of TCD in 2011. The company is developing a class of drugs based on indane derivatives of a Taiwanese fern, which were discovered through research on Chinese herbal medicine.

The company's lead product, PH46A, is being developed to target gastrointestinal diseases including Crohn's disease. Trino's aim is to develop anti-inflammatory therapeutics with a decreased number of adverse side effects.

Trino is based in Dublin and employs four in-house staff, with a number of external consultants who advise the company.

People
Neil Frankish is a co-founder and managing director of Trino, alongside co-founder and principal chemist Helen Sheridan. Ena Prosser, a partner at Fountain Healthcare, has joined Trino's board of directors.

Also on Trino's board are Growcorp executive chairman Michael Donnelly and Wellcome Trust business analyst Keith Spencer.

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