The money has been put forward by five companies, which in total have invested an initial $9m and committed to staking a further $2m in the biotech.

Chiasma will use this funding to develop products using its Transient Permeability Enhancer (TPE) technology, which can make oral formulations of drugs that normally need to be injected.

Acting CEO Fredric Price said: "Our challenge is to achieve results in humans that are as effective as what we have been able to accomplish in animals, and we are focused on entering the clinic later this year. We are proceeding with drugs that, if approved with the TPE system, will be the first oral delivery for each particular molecule.

“Our first-to-market strategy relates to both drugs which we license to third parties as well as drugs for which we initiate development activities on our own and subsequently seek to enter into partnerships in which we retain certain development and commercialisation rights."

The TPE technology facilitates the delivery of drugs orally by temporarily opening passages between epithelial cells in the mucosal epithelia. Chiasma claims that the technology can be used to deliver a range of therapeutics including peptides, small molecules and medium size proteins.

Consequently the company feels TPE could be used to extend the lifecycle of an array of compounds and meet patients’ desires for less painful and more convenient routes of administration.