After flashing warning signs in July with only enough money for that month, Inventiva has now secured a lifeline to keep its Phase 3 liver disease study afloat.
The French biotech said Monday it got €94.1 million in new funds and could get up to €348 million total over multiple rounds of the tranched financing.
The money will support the completion of Inventiva’s Phase 3 NATiV3 study of lanifibranor in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or MASH, which has randomized more than 1,100 patients and is slated to complete enrollment by next summer.
The biotech also added Mark Pruzanski as its new chair, who has decades of experience in the MASH field. He last sold Versanis Bio to Eli Lilly. But before that, he was the longtime founder and CEO of Intercept Pharmaceuticals, which for years tried getting a MASH drug approved by the FDA but was ultimately unsuccessful and sold to Italian pharma company Alfasigma.
“Based on the previously published Phase 2b NATIVE study results, lanifibranor has a profile that positions it as a possible ‘best in category’ oral drug: its insulin sensitizing and direct antifibrotic benefits make it an ideal therapy for the large population of Type 2 diabetic patients with advanced fibrosis due to MASH who are at the greatest risk of progressing to liver failure,” Pruzanski said in a statement.
Frédéric CrenCEO Frédéric Cren said the financing will also support the filing for approval and preparing for potential commercialization.
“I would also like to highlight the benefit Mark’s deep expertise in the MASH field brings and look forward to working with him to ensure the best chance of getting lanifibranor to patients,” Cren said in a statement.
New Enterprise Associates, BVF Partners and Samsara BioCapital led the financing. More than half a dozen other investors took part, as well. Samsara’s Srinivas Akkaraju also joined the board.
At the time of its warning in July, Inventiva said it had just €9.6 million ($10.4 million) in cash and equivalents at the end of May.
The new financing is “much-needed,” Jefferies analyst Lucy Codrington wrote in a Monday note. It’s “still not an assured runway to MASH data,” which is expected in the back half of 2026, “but perhaps achievable given clear investor commitment,” the analyst added.