Cleara Biotech B.V., an Utrecht, The Netherlands-based preclinical-stage biotechnology company spun out from University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), closed a $2.5m seed financing round earlier in the year.
The round was led by Apollo Health Ventures, with participation from Curie Capital B.V., ROM Utrecht Region and Longevity Tech Fund.
The proceeds will be used to progress the company’s compounds toward clinical development and further build its developmental pipeline and management team.
Cleara focuses on developing therapies for treating different pathologies of “scarred cellular” senescence, including late-stage cancer and chronic diseases. The company has optimized two lead developmental candidates, CL04177 and CL04183, that can eliminate scarred cancer cells found in several late-stage cancers and chronic diseases in humans. It is aiming to develop precision medicine tools that treat specific diseases with clear niche-directed, anti-senescent lead candidates, accompanied with associated biomarkers, around its FOXO4-based D-amino acid peptides and pipeline against subtypes of senescence.
Designed and optimized based on an extensive (3D) structural, molecular and cellular understanding of cell scarring’s mechanism of action and how FOXO4 restrains this particular form of the cell guardian p53, both lead compounds potently counter viability of scarred cancer cells in 2D culture and 3D organoids, as well as reduce the metastatic burden and infiltration in mouse in vivo models for metastatic colon cancer and triple-negative breast cancer. Furthermore, they show favorable pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution in mice, with an MTD that is well above their efficacious dose.
Cleara has also appointed Dr. Angelos Stergiou, New York-based SELLAS Life Sciences’ President and Chief Executive Officer, as its Board of Directors Chairman. Dr. Stergiou is a leader in the biotechnology industry with more than 20 years of experience in immuno-oncology, drug development and health economics, as well as deep expertise in finance and corporate governance. Dr. Peter de Keizer is the Managing Director and Scientific Founder of the company.
FinSMEs
28/09/2022