Swiss-based Araris Biotech confirmed the closing of an oversubscribed seed financing round of CHF 2.5 million with participation of Swiss investors Redalpine, Schroder Adveq and VI Partners.
According to a spokesperson of the company, the proceeds will be used to develop a pipeline of proprietary antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
Spin-off
Araris, a spin-off company from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich, focuses on the commercialization of a novel antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)-linker technology.
Araris has the potential to become a powerful drug development platform able to enter large commercial markets and address the great unmet medical needs with proprietary ADCs, by helping to overcome limitations seen with conventional ADCs now in clinical testing. With the company’s proprietary ADC linker technology, drug attachment is simple, highly controlled and has the potential to accommodate various drug combinations. This significantly improves the ADC’s safety and efficacy, and also makes manufacture more-straightforward.The company has developed a technology designed to improve current antibody-drug conjugates technology. The innovative platform developed allows for the attachment of any payload to ‘off the shelf’ antibodies without the need of prior antibody engineering.
The resulting ADCs have a well-defined drug-to-antibody ratio, are stable and monomeric. All these favorable properties contribute to the high efficacy and low level of toxicity observed so far.
The straightforward drug conjugation, versatility of the technology and high in vivo efficacy enable the generation of antibody-drug conjugates. As a result the company has the potential to become a powerful drug development platform able to enter large commercial markets for the treatment of patients with high unmet medical needs.
Strong track record
“We are very pleased to announce that three renowned Swiss investors with a very strong track record have invested in Araris,” said Philipp Spycher, Ph.D, Araris’ co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.
“Obtaining a seed financing from VCs just six months after incorporation of Araris validates the strong interest in our novel linker ADC technology. The funding will allow Araris to progress quickly towards generating key proof of principle data,” concluded Dragan Grabulovski, Ph.D, co-founder and chairman of the board of the company.
