Diogenx SAS raised €27.5 million (US$30.4 million) in a series A round to move a novel therapy for type 1 diabetes into clinical development. The Marseille, France-based company is building on the research of co-founder Patrick Collombat, an expert in beta-cell regeneration, who is based at the Insitute of Biology Valrose and the University Côte d’Azur, in Nice. Its lead drug candidate comprises a recombinant R-spondin protein, which acts on the Wnt/beta-catenin signal pathway to boost replication of endogenous functioning beta-cells.
The idea for a new company, Ten63 Therapeutics Inc., started in 2015, when Gilda Szacher Frenkel passed away at age 62 from pancreatic cancer. After sequencing her tumor, her son Marcel discovered that her cancer was driven by mutations to key proteins that regulate cellular processes – all the “usual suspects,” he said. At the time, he remembers they were initially encouraged by the discovery and excited to search for developed drugs that could help her. “Here was this blueprint telling us what was wrong,” Marcel Frenkel said, “but, unfortunately, those mutations were unactionable. There were no drugs to modulate the main oncologic drivers.”
Mediwhale Inc. closed a $9 million series A round that will see the company take its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered retina scans to prevent heart and kidney diseases to the U.S. market.
With its sights set on a series A and an IPO following a £3.5 million (US$4.4 million) investment round in 2021, Scottish biotech ILC Therapeutics Ltd. is hoping to make waves with a sublingual interferon antiviral to treat COVID-19. The USP for the company’s lead, Alfacyte, is the fact that it’s an artificial version of interferon, so it has less of a propensity to cause the flu-like symptoms that can come from treatment with natural kinds, which hike levels of cytokines and interleukins. As a hybrid interferon that is composed of interferon alpha-10 and interferon alpha-12, Alfacyte is “up to 10,000 times less likely” to cause adverse effects, according to ILC CEO Alan Walker.
Initial Therapeutics Inc. has launched with a focus on developing medicines that block difficult-to-drug protein targets with a new mode of action – selective termination of protein synthesis (STOPS).
Ciliatech SAS secured $3.87 million in series A funding to continue developing its second-generation implant to treat open-angle glaucoma. This round was led by its historical shareholders, including BNP Development SAS, Kreaxi SAS and individual investor Bernard Chauvin. “With this additional money, we can continue clinical trials to obtain the CE mark,” Olivier Benoit, co-founder and CEO of Ciliatech SAS told BioWorld.
Therini Bio Inc. has closed a US$36 million series A financing round that will support its work on developing fibrin-targeted therapies for diseases driven by chronic inflammation, including Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and retinal diseases such as diabetic macular edema.
Orbital Therapeutics Inc. raised $270 million in a series A round to fund a big push into the next generation of mRNA-based therapies. The Cambridge, Mass.-based firm is building out a comprehensive RNA platform from which it will launch programs in oncology, autoimmune disease and indications involving protein replacement approaches.
The €13.8 million (US$15.25 million) Kiro SAS recently raised in its series A financing led by Sofinnova Partners will enable the company to further develop its artificial intelligence (AI) platform, which standardizes and analyzes laboratory test results, making them more relevant to doctors and easier for patients to understand. The funding will also allow the company to prepare the groundwork to enter the U.S. market where, Alexandre Guenoun, CEO at Kiro, told BioWorld, there is a huge “opportunity” for the AI platform following changes to regulations which require laboratories to communicate test results directly to patients.
Complement Therapeutics GmbH raised €72 million (US$79.4 million) in a series A round to move into the clinic a novel gene therapy for treating geographic atrophy secondary to dry age-related macular degeneration. It’s the largest series A round completed in Europe so far this year.
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