Promethera Biosciences, a Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium-based cell therapy company operating in the field of liver diseases, has raised €23.6m (approximately $31.4m) in Series B funding.
The company secured a capital increase of €17m and a loan of €6.6m from the Walloon Region.
Backers include new investors Boehringer Ingelheim (http://www.boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com) and Shire, Japanese investment fund Mitsui Global Investment, US company ATMI and Belgian venture capital fund SambrInvest. They join Series A investors Vesalius Biocapital, SRIW, Vives-Louvain Technology Fund, Life Science Research Partners, NivelInvest, Financière Spin-off Luxembourgeoise, Sopartec (UCL’s technology transfer company), as well as several business angels.
Founded in 2009 as a spin-off of the Université Catholique de Louvain and led by CEO Eric Halioua, Promethera Biosciences develops and commercializes cell therapy products to treat liver diseases using allogenic progenitor cells harvested from healthy human livers. Products include:
– Promethera® HepaStem, a cell therapy product, to treat severe diseases of the liver affecting children and adults.
– Promethera® HepaScreen, a cell model for the pharmaceutical industry to mimic metabolism and detoxification of new drugs by the human liver.
Promethera Biosciences currently employs 40 employees.
FinSMEs
28/03/2012