Promethera Biosciences SA, a Mont, Saint Guibert, Belgium-based cell therapy and regenerative medicine company targeting liver diseases, raised €10m ($11m) in Series C financing.
Backers included existing shareholders Vesalius Biocapital, SRIW, Fund+, MGI Global Fund (Mitsui & Co), Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and SMS Investments and new investors Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co., Ltd. and Cell Innovation Partners, L.P. (CIP) from Japan and LifeLiver Co., Ltd. from South Korea.
The company intends to use the funds to expand product development focus to include larger liver disease indications such as acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), nonalcoholic steatohepatits (NASH) and Fibrosis and to accelerate these developments towards the clinic.
Founded in 2009 by Prof. Dr. Etienne Sokal and Sopartec, the tech transfer office (TTO) of the Walloon Region-based Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) and led by Dr. John Tchelingerian, PhD, CEO, Promethera Biosciences is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company and a leader in cell therapy and regenerative medicine for the treatment of inborn and acquired liver diseases with no effective therapeutic cure.
The company uses allogeneic progenitor cells, stem cells and mature hepatocytes that are harvested and purified from non-transplantable, healthy human livers (Heterologous Human Adult Liver-derived Progenitor Cells, HHALPC and Heterologous Human Liver Cells, HHLivC), which have resulted in the development of three different cell products, HepaStem and H2Stem (progenitor/stem cells) and Heparesc® (mature hepatocytes).
Promethera specializes in the development of therapeutic options for the treatment of a broad variety of liver diseases. These range from orphan indications, such as rare inborn metabolic diseases including urea cycle disorders (UCD) or inherited diseases such as a1at deficiency (α1-antitrypsin) and hemophilia to large indications such as acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), fibrosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatits (NASH).
The company has U.S. based operations and a GMP compliant manufacturing facility in Durham, NC, US.
FinSMEs
28/10/2016