ETH spin-out Covagen attract US investor and closes funding round

Funding round completed

Covagen, an ETH Zurich spin-out company based at the ETH campus, which is developing a novel class of protein therapeutics called Fynomers, announced the closing of a financing round with existing shareholder Novartis Venture Fund and MP Healthcare Venture Management, Inc (MPH) joining as a new investor.

This will allow Covagen to further develop its Fynomer technology platform and to generate proof of principle data for its lead drug candidate, an interleukin inhibitor for the treatment of multiple inflammatory diseases.

“We are looking forward to having MPH as investor, and are very pleased that Covagen is backed by two experienced venture capital firms,” said Julian Bertschinger, Chief Executive Officer of Covagen.

MPH, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is a jointly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation. “After an extensive review of many opportunities in the next generation biotherapeutics sector, it was clear that Covagen’s Fynomer technology shows great promise as a new scaffold, and its management team is able to move their programs forward very effectively,” said Jeffrey Moore, Vice President of MPH.

Covagen’s platform comprises recently developed Covalent DNA Display technology and a single-domain protein scaffold, which – in an analogy with antibodies – can be engineered to yield high-affinity binding proteins called Fynomers. The company says the structure of these Fynomers makes it possible to reach targets that are not accessible with antibodies.