Barcelona-based CONNECTA Therapeutics has closed a EUR 3.1 million (USD 3.4 million) financing round to support the clinical development of CTH120, its small-molecule neuroplasticity modulator in Fragile X syndrome (FXS), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder for which no approved targeted therapies currently exist.
The round was led by Clave Capital, a new investor entering via its Innvierte Science Tech Clave Innohealth, F.C.R. fund, with participation from existing backers Inveready, CDTI Innvierte, and the Prous Institute for Biomedical Research. Proceeds will be directed toward completing the ongoing Phase IIa trial of CTH120 in adult males with FXS (NCT07654114), with topline data expected in mid-2027. Ignacio Prieto Fernández of Clave Capital will join CONNECTA's board. The financing follows a EUR 1.7 million seed round raised in 2020 led by Inveready and CDTI Innvierte, and complements substantial non-dilutive funding the company has secured over the same period, including a EUR 2.7 million grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and the European Union's NextGeneration EU programme to fund the Phase IIa trial directly.
CONNECTA was founded in 2019 as a spinout of the Prous Institute for Biomedical Research, where CTH120 was identified through computational screening of more than 30 molecular targets. Preclinical validation was conducted by Mara Dierssen, Senior Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, whose laboratory demonstrated the compound's neuroplasticity modulation properties in FXS animal models. CTH120 targets tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB), a key mediator in neurotrophic factor pathways implicated in the synaptic and structural plasticity deficits caused by loss of the FMRP protein in FXS.