Boston-based Cerevance has completed enrollment in its pivotal Phase III ARISE trial of solengepras in Parkinson's disease and closed an oversubscribed USD 20 million Series C financing round, positioning the company for a topline data readout by end of Q3 2026.
The Series C was funded entirely by existing investors, with participation from Double Point Ventures, Gates Frontier, Google Ventures, Lightstone Ventures, MQB Partners, SV Health Investors' Dementia Discovery Fund, and UPMC. No new investors joined the round. Proceeds are intended to fund operations into mid-2027, covering the completion of ARISE and continued pipeline advancement. The round follows a USD 47 million Series B-1 extension closed in April 2024, which was itself part of a cumulative Series B-1 raise totaling USD 98 million. Total financing raised by the company now exceeds USD 180 million across all rounds since its 2016 founding.
The ARISE trial and what it is measuring
The Phase III ARISE trial is a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating solengepras as an adjunctive therapy to levodopa and other standard-of-care Parkinson's medications. The trial enrolled 341 patients aged 30 and older across sites in the US, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Eligible patients were required to experience an average of three or more hours of total OFF time per day — the periods during which Parkinson's symptoms recur or worsen despite ongoing medication.
Participants were randomized to receive solengepras at 75 mg or 150 mg, or placebo, administered once daily for 12 weeks. The primary endpoint is the change from baseline to week 12 in average daily OFF time for the 150 mg dose versus placebo. Secondary objectives include assessments of safety and tolerability, ON time, non-motor symptoms including daytime sleepiness, cognitive function, and quality-of-life measures using the Movement Disorder Society-UPDRS and PD Questionnaire 39, among others.
The mechanism behind solengepras
Solengepras — also known as CVN424 — is a selective oral inverse agonist of the GPR6 receptor, a target expressed in striatal indirect pathway neurons. Its mechanism is distinct from all approved Parkinson's therapies in that it does not act on the dopamine system. Current standard-of-care treatments, including levodopa, work by replenishing or mimicking dopamine. While effective in early disease, these approaches are associated with motor fluctuations and dyskinesias over time as their therapeutic window narrows.
By targeting GPR6 in the indirect basal ganglia pathway, solengepras is designed to modulate motor circuit activity without directly altering dopamine signaling. The company said this approach may reduce OFF periods while carrying a lower risk of the side effects typically associated with long-term dopaminergic therapy. Phase II data published in 2024 in EClinicalMedicine reported reductions in OFF time and a favorable tolerability profile, providing the clinical rationale for the Phase III program.
The NETSseq platform and its academic origins
Cerevance's pipeline is built on a proprietary drug discovery platform called NETSseq — Nuclear Enriched Transcript Sort sequencing — which was developed by Nathaniel Heintz and Xiao Xu during postdoctoral research at The Rockefeller University. Cerevance was co-founded by Heintz and Xu in 2016 and licensed the technology from Rockefeller at the time of the company's formation.