Early-stage drug company Diural has secured more than £250,000 of co-investment from Finance Wales, Fusion IP and the Viking Fund.

Early-stage drug company Diural has secured more than £250,000 of co-investment from Finance Wales, Fusion IP and the Viking Fund.

The company also received an additional £200,000 grant from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop a hormone treatment that will benefit a range of chronic illnesses.

Martin Whitaker, general manager at Diural, says: The investment will allow us to develop our drug development programmes to the next level and move closer to final testing licensing and commercialisation.

Finance Wales is investing £150,000 of equity alongside £50,000 each from the Viking Fund and university investment group Fusion IP – of which Diurnal is a subsidiary.

Diurnal was originally spun out from the University of Sheffield but will be headquartered at offices in Cardiff and will work closely with Tredegar-based Penn Pharmaceuticals to develop its new formulation approach.