Probiodrug closes second round at €36M

Funding

Probiodrug AG, a specialist in neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, has raised €36 million in a second round of funding, attracting new investors BB Biotech and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners as co-lead investors, and LSP Life Science Partners and Biogen Idec New Ventures. All existing institutional shareholders, IBG Fonds, TVM Capital, HBM BioVentures, CFH Group and private investors followed on.

Elhan Kosar from BB Biotech and Olivier Litzka from Edmond de Rothschild will join the company’s board, while Joerg Neermann from LSP, Rossella Medori from Biogen Idec New Ventures and Dallas Webb from BB Biotech will be observers.

Kosar said, “We are impressed with the company’s innovation and expertise in drug discovery and development applied to a novel target, glutaminyl cyclase. The role of this enzyme in Alzheimer’s disease and other inflammatory diseases was discovered and [the intellectual property] comprehensively protected by Probiodrug.”

Litzka said, “The resulting glutaminyl cyclase inhibitors addressing Alzheimer’s disease and inflammation could become disease changing drugs with significant medical and market potential.”

The funds will be used to further progress Probiodrug’s research programmes, in particular, inhibition of glutaminyl cyclase, said Hendrik Liebers, Chief Financial Officer of Probiodrug. “This treatment concept required significant efforts by Probiodrug to establish an integrated package [...] of advanced small-molecule drug candidates, new animal models [of Alzheimer’s disease], neuronal loss and neuroinflammation, [that are] much better than existing models, and a unique set of pharmacodynamic and biomarkers, which are needed to successfully develop into regulatory phases now,” added Hans-Ulrich Demuth, Chief Scientific Officer.