Germany-based cancer immunotherapy developer Catalym completed a €50m ($59m) series B round yesterday that included Novartis Venture Fund, a strategic investment vehicle for pharmaceutical firm Novartis.
The round was led by life sciences fund Vesalius Biocapital III and also featured the German government-backed Coparion, Bavarian state-owned Bayern Kapital’s Wachstumsfonds Bayern fund and venture capital firms BioGeneration Ventures (BGV) and Forbion Capital Partners.
Catalym is developing monoclonal antibody treatments for cold tumours that target GDF-15, a protein that has been associated with bolstering the resistance of cancerous tissues and tumours to existing cancer drugs.
The company is also working on discovery-stage assets to address cancer and autoimmune diseases leveraging GDF-15’s immune receptor. Its technology is based on research led by Jörg Wischhusen, head of the section of experimental tumour immunology at University of Würzburg’s Medical School.
The series B funding will go to preparing Catalym’s lead product candidate, CTL-002, for a first-in-human clinical study expected to commence next month.
Catalym’s CEO, Manfred Ruediger, said: “This fundraising with the strong commitment of both our existing and new investors allows us to bring CTL-002 to clinical proof-of-concept and to establish that neutralising GDF-15 is one of the key immune restorative mechanisms in a broad range of tumour types.”
As yet unnamed representatives from Novartis Venture Fund, Vesalius Biocapital III and Wachstumsfonds Bayern will join the company’s board of directors. BGV and Forbion were identified by Catalym as founding investors.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.