BioVersys, a Basel, Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company, closed a CHF 19m Series B financing round.
The company intends to use the funds – which complement the CHF 16.5m of non-dilutive funding raised in 2019 from CARB-X and the IMI2-JU/European Union, to advance BV100 and BVL-GSK098, its two lead assets of infectious disease candidates into first in human clinical trials.
In conjunction with the funding, Dr. Eduard Holdener joined BioVersys’ board.
Led by Dr. Marc Gitzinger, CEO, BioVersys is a a pharmaceutical company that focuses on developing small molecules for multidrug-resistant bacterial infections with applications in Anti-Microbial Resistance (AMR) and targeted microbiome modulation.
The company’s BV100 is a potential breakthrough hospital antibiotic to treat serious infections caused by carbapenem resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) in indications of ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia (VABP), hospital-acquired bacterial pneumonia (HABP) and bloodstream infections (BSI), for which there are little to no effective and safe treatment options. BV100 has shown outstanding in vitro and in vivo efficacy in several animal models, with unprecedented in vitro strain coverage against CRAB and a very low propensity to develop resistance.
In addition, BVL-GSK098 is a novel compound potentiating and overcoming the resistance against Ethionamide (Eto) for the treatment of tuberculosis. BVL-GSK098 targets bacterial transcriptional regulators, an approach that will be assessed globally for the first time in clinical trials. BVL-GSK098 is developed in combination with Eto for the treatment of tuberculosis in collaboration with GSK. The program is supported by the IMI2 AMR Accelerator from the EU.
Dr. Holdener is currently serving on the board of HBM Healthcare Investments and was previously Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors at Novimmune S.A. which was sold in July 2019. Prior to Novimmune, Dr. Holdener was Head of Global Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer at F. Hoffmann-La Roche.
FinSMEs
01/09/2020