Investment
Affiris GmbH, based at the Campus Vienna Biocenter, Austria, has raised €3 million in new funding from the Austrian venture capital MIG AG, which has set up two new funds MIG 5 and MIG 7 to give private investors in Germany and Austria the opportunity to invest in the vaccines specialist.
The MIG 7 is designed to enable German investors to take advantage of changes to capital gains tax, which means that if they hold investments for a year any later profits are tax free.
Walter Schmidt, co-founder and CEO, said the key to the company’s vaccine strategy is its Affitome platform technology. “[This] enables scientists to create both molecules with very specific binding characteristics and molecules that differ in structure but exhibit identical binding characteristics.”
Affiris is currently using this approach to develop two vaccines against Alzheimer’s disease, and the next product coming through the pipeline is a treatment for atherosclerosis.
Michael Motschmann, Senior Fund Manager at MIG Fonds, said, “In an amazingly short time, the company has developed two vaccines against Alzheimer’s disease from the initial idea to Phase I clinical trials. This progress alone prompted us to make another substantial investment.” He added that the Affitome technology represents an “almost inestimable value” and is likely to enable Affiris to attract licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies.
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