Heptares Therapeutics, a drug development and discovery firm, announced today that it has successfully closed its Sereis B round with over $21 million. Leading the investment round was Stanley Family Foundation and existing investors Takeda Ventures and Clarus Ventures.

The funding is to be used for the advancement of Heptares Therapeutics' clinical pipeline of consumer oriented drugs, targeting the treatment and maintenance of neurological and mental diseases.

The company is advancing its development of the selective M1 muscarinic receptor program. Muscarinic agonism is clinically approved to be a safe and reliable treatment for Alzheimer's disease. It is also validated to be effective against dementia and schizophrenic-derived cognitive impairment.

Current aids against Alzheimer's disease only offers little treatment and modest effects on the patient. There exists no drug in the market for cognitive impairment brought about by schizophrenia.

Chief executive officer of Heptares Malcolm Weir commented on the investment,  "Heptares is entering an exciting new phase of development as the lead compounds in our pipeline approach the clinic. All of these potential new medicines have been developed using our unique GPCR-focused structure-based drug design approach and technologies."