Alizé raises €3 M for drug development in cancer and metabolic diseases

Funding round completed

Alizé Pharma, a group of biopharmaceutical companies developing drugs for metabolic diseases and cancer, raised €3 million of funding, with new investor, SHAM, a Lyon-based insurance company leading the round. Existing investors, Octalfa SAS, a French holding company, and CEMA Inc, a Canadian holding company, also participated. Including this new round, Alizé Pharma Group has raised €4.8 million from these three investors since its formation in 2007.

The funding will allow Alizé to strengthen its drug development team, pursue its development programmes and facilitate partnership discussions. As of today, the group has two programmes at the preclinical stage. These are being handled by two distinct entities, Alizé Pharma and Alizé Pharma II. The first, AZP-01, is developing the first product of a new therapeutic class, unacetylated ghrelin agonists, for the treatment of Type II diabetes. The second, Asparec (AZP-02), is a recombinant long-acting L-asparaginase product with reduced immunogenicity, being developed in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The new money will allow Alizé to finalise the optimisation and formulation of a first drug candidate for AZP-01 and to file a clinical trial application for Asparec.

“We are very pleased to welcome SHAM as a new investor and to benefit from the continued support of our existing investors,” said Thierry Abribat, president and founder of Alizé Pharma. "This fundraising shows the confidence of our investors in our strategy of selecting programmes that fulfill clearly identified medical needs, creating value by achieving drug development milestones and establishing early partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry.”