Mañueco visits the offices of Neurofix Pharma, the first biotech company in Castilla y León to successfully complete phase IIA of a clinical trial

“Your success generates opportunities, employment, wealth and improves people’s quality of life”. The president of the Regional Government of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, visited the offices of Neurofix Pharma in the Science Park of the University of Salamanca this Friday to support the first biotech company in Castilla y León to successfully complete phase IIA of a clinical trial of their pioneering drug to treat aggressive neuropathic pain in patients with spinal cord injury. Mañueco has been accompanied by the Minister of Health, Alejandro Vázquez; the rector of the University of Salamanca, Ricardo Rivero; the territorial delegate of the Board, Eloy Ruiz; the president of the Salamanca Provincial Council, Javier Iglesias; and the mayor of Villamayor de Armuña, Ángel Peralvo.

The head of the regional Executive stressed that Neurofix Pharma is a young company that «succeeds in Salamanca and in Castilla y León and that is something of which we should be especially proud.» Mañueco has insisted that the drug developed by the company «is hope for many people with spinal cord injury.»

For his part, the CEO of Neurofix Pharma, Miguel Ángel Ávila, has assured that “biotechnology has progressed more than any other scientific and technological discipline in the last two decades”. The company has been working in this field since 2015. «Neurofix Pharma focuses on trying to improve the quality of life of patients with spinal cord injury by treating their pain and reducing the social cost associated with this problem,» he added.

The visit took place the same week in which Neurofix Pharma has taken a decisive step forward. The European Innovation Council has confirmed to the company its passage to the last phase of the EIC Accelerator initiative, the most popular European financing line for companies that want to launch disruptive innovation services or products on the market (affecting a certain industry in such a way that they make it change drastically). It is a boost to the development of the NFX88 drug that would accelerate its development, double the company’s workforce and boost the capitalization and closing of the currently open round.

Despite the fact that the EIC Accelerator is one of the most competitive calls launched by the European Union (in 2021 the success rate was 3.2%), the Neurofix Pharma team has managed to advance to the last phase, which It consists of an interview before the jury of the initiative to defend your project.

Miguel Ángel Ávila assures that, by obtaining the financing granted by the EIC Accelerator, the company could «obtain part of the resources to continue with the clinical development of its product before reaching the market.» This is phase IIB/III of the trial in which the efficacy of NFX88 would be ratified.

Neuropathic pain after spinal cord injury is common and often becomes chronic. It must be considered that between 48% and 92% of spinal cord injuries experience pain, neuropathic pain being very frequent with a prevalence of up to 42%. According to the experts of the Spanish Pain Society, the management of neuropathic pain related to spinal cord injury is a therapeutic challenge. The long-term prognosis often worsens over time, causing the degree of disability to increase, reducing the quality of life for patients. Getting adequate control of your pain is a very complex task. In practice, only a third of these patients reduce their pain by 50% with the treatments currently on the market, risking serious side effects such as ataxias, heart problems or depression.

The drug developed by Neurofix Pharma represents great hope for these patients since in the phase IIA clinical trial it has obtained very positive safety results and high efficacy trends, with the absence of serious side effects.

The good results of this phase have multiplied the company’s valuation to 22 million euros. Backed by strong investors, Neurofix Pharma has just started a new round of financing to face the next stages of the clinical trial. This is a capitalization worth 7 million euros in which important national and international investors have already shown their interest.