Belgium: Cardio3 BioSciences raises €13.7M to develop heart failure therapy

Investment round completed

Cardio3 BioSciences, a specialist in cell-based cardiovascular therapy in Aalst, Belgium, has raised €13.7 million in a series B financing round to develop C-Cure, a proprietary cell-based technology that can generate heart muscle cells and be used to treat patients suffering from heart failure and without the risk of rejection by the host.

C-Cure is a cell-culturing technology that allows the differentiation of a patient’s own bone marrow stem cells into cardiopoietic cells that are identical to those lost during an infarction, so regenerating damaged heart muscle. The technology was developed from research at the Mayo Clinic in the US, which is a major shareholder of Cardio3 BioSciences. The company expects that 240 patients will be enrolled in a clinical trial to validate C-Cure as an effective treatment for heart failure.

Investors in the C-Cure project include the Belgium-based investment group Life Science Research Partners, a Luxemburg-based venture capital firm, Hunza Ventures II and Grifols, a Spanish holding company specialising in the pharmaceutical hospital industry. In addition the Walloon Region General Directorate for Economy, Employment and Research is offering €6.5 million in interest-free cash advances, repayable on commercialisation of C-Cure.

Christian Homsy, of Cardio3 BioSciences, said: “Our ability to raise this level of funding in such a difficult environment reflects the significant commercial potential of C-Cure for the treatment of heart failure. The backing of our investors also demonstrates their confidence in the Cardio3 BioSciences team’s ability to bring this unique cell-based treatment to market. With the funding we have announced today we will be able to initiate our forthcoming clinical trial with C-Cure, a study which we are confident will show the product is of real benefit to patients.”

Desiré Collen, of Life Science Research Partners, said: "The investment that we have made in Cardio3 BioSciences reflects our desire to support companies with cutting edge technologies that have the potential to transform medical practice. Cardio3 BioSciences’s experienced management team along with the proprietary technology from Mayo Clinic offers the appropriate mix of scientific, industrial and commercial expertise to bring this novel treatment for heart failure to patients. The active participation of a number of world leading cardiologists in the clinical development of C-Cure highlights the need for such an improved treatment for heart failure and was an important factor in our decision to invest."

Clinicians involved in the C-Cure project include André Terzic from the Mayo Clinic and Jozef Bartunek and William Wijns, from the Cardiovascular Center in Aalst, and Michal Tendera of the Silesian Heart Centre in Katowice.