Austin-based Savara Pharmaceuticals raised $1.4M according to a regulatory filing. No other details were disclosed. As we’ve written before, there are new online filing requirements for companies that raise money, and the new filings have very little required information.

Savara is a pharmaceutical company that is part of the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI). They develop novel respiratory therapeutics utilizing a proprietary NanoCluster dry powder aerosol drug delivery platform. The aerosols are assembled directly from nanoparticles of an existing therapeutic and delivered via oral pulmonary or nasal routes using off-the-shelf dry powder inhalers.

The majority of Savara’s existing investors participated in the round, which was made up of biotechnology industry veterans and successful business leaders. Savara will utilize the funds to continue development of its NanoCluster technology in the dry powder therapeutics market and expand into nebulizer and propellant markets. Rob Neville, the company’s Executive Chairman was previously the CEO of Evity, another ATI company which was acquired by BMC Software.

“I’m excited that we exceeded our entire Series A fund raising goal in just a few weeks,” said Rob. “The funds from our seed round allowed us to validate our technology across multiple drug classes, which led to several partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies. We’ve assembled a world class team and are ready to pursue the numerous opportunities ahead of us.”

Savara has the option to complete a second tranche of the Series A round later this year if additional funds are needed.

The key parameter to improving the efficacy of pulmonary products depends on being able to dial-in particles sizes in the range of one to three microns. The Savara NanoCluster technology has this capability without the need for novel excipients and benefits from a highly efficient manufacturing process. These NanoClusters are modeled after naturally occurring aerosols, which are highly effective in reaching the peripheral lung.