BRIEF—Pliant Therapeutics raises $100 million to advance therapies for fibrotic diseases

USA-based clinical-stage biotech Pliant Therapeutics today announced that it has raised $100 million in a Series C financing.

Pliant plans to use the proceeds from the financing to support the continued clinical development of PLN-74809 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), as well as its ongoing drug discovery programs targeting other fibrotic diseases.

Novartis led the financing, with Redmile Group, Farallon Capital Management, Cormorant Asset Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company) and Logos Capital joining the round as new investors.

Last year, Pliant entered into a licensing deal with Novartis for a pre-clinical product candidate, PLN-1474 and up to three additional integrin targets.

Pliant's initial therapeutic approach focuses on fibrotic tissue-specific inhibition of integrins and the TGF-β pathway.

The company's lead small molecule product candidate, PLN-74809 is designed to be a dual selective inhibitor of αVβ1 and αVβ6, two integrins that play key roles in multiple fibrotic pathways.