Affimed Therapeutics AG, a Heidelberg, Germany-based therapeutic antibody company developing antibody therapeutics as novel treatments for life threatening diseases, closed a €20m Series C financing round.
The round was lead by existing investors aeris Capital, BioMedInvest, LSP Life Sciences Partners, Novo Nordisk A/S and Orbimed.
The capital will be used to fund the clinical validation of the company’s proprietary therapeutic antibody technology and the ongoing development of its therapeutic antibody pipeline.
Affimed’s lead program, AFM13 for the treatment of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, is expected to start clinical phase I trials in the third quarter of 2010.
AFM13 is an innovative bispecific antibody based on the company’s proprietary TandAb technology. TandAbs are tetravalent antibodies with manifold application possibilities. In cancer indications TandAbs bind target molecules on the surface of tumor cells and simultaneously activate T cells or natural killer cells (NK cells).
TandAbs are able to identify and selectively destroy tumor cells in the human body.
AFM11 and AFM12 for the treatment of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, are currently in preclinical development and expected to begin phase I studies in 2011.
Affimed, which employs 26 people, is a spin-off from the German Cancer Research Centre.
FinSMEs
30/04/2010