Netherlands-based autoimmune disease therapy developer Calypso Biotech collected €20m ($22.6m) on Wednesday in a series A round that included subsidiaries of pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson and Merck Group.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC and M Ventures participated alongside healthcare investment firm Gilde Healthcare and venture capital fund Inkef Capital, which co-led the round.
Calypso is developing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies to treat diseases or conditions caused when the immune system attacks the body. It was spun off from Merck subsidiary Merck Serono in 2013 with $3.2m in seed funding.
The company’s lead drug candidate, CALY-002, is intended to treat eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), a chronic immune-related condition where a certain type of white blood cell accumulates in the oesophagus, making it difficult or painful for a patient to swallow.
Proceeds from the series A round funding will fund first-in-human studies of CALY-002, which has been granted orphan drug status for EoE from European regulators.
Calypso has also become a resident company at Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s JLabs life sciences incubator in Beerse, Belgium. Arthur Franken, a partner at Gilde Healthcare, has taken a seat on its board of directors.