New Leaf Venture Partners, which led the $54.5 million series A by startup Curasen Therapeutics Inc., got in on the ground floor of a previous venture by company co-founders Anthony Ford, named CEO, and Kathleen Sereda Glaub, executive chair. Their former effort, Afferent Pharmaceuticals Inc., went to Merck & Co. Inc. in a 2016 buyout worth up to $1.25 billion for the orally administered P2X3 antagonist AF-219 to treat refractory chronic cough and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with cough.