Thermosome GmbH, a Martinsried (near Munich), Germany-based biopharmaceutical company, closed a €4.6m in total funding.
This included:
– approximately €1.9m from funds managed by High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH and Bayern Kapital, as well as a group of private investors; and
– a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) providing additionally €2.7m over the project duration of 3 years.
Led by managing director Dr. Pascal Schweizer, Thermosome develops a drug delivery platform used to create thermosensitive drug-loaded nanocarriers which locally release their encapsulated drug within the blood stream upon the influence of mild heat (40-42°C). Thereby, up to 15 fold higher local drug concentrations can be reached while simultaneously reducing the systemic exposure and side effects of conventional parenteral drug application. Various methods for triggering release through focused application of mild heat are clinically established.
Its lead candidate is a formulation of a potent, but toxic chemotherapeutic drug that has already achieved the pre-clinical proof-of-concept in several animal studies. In these studies, it showed improved efficacy at reduced side effects compared to conventional delivery.
The proceeds from the first financing round and the grant will be used to move the lead candidate through GMP manufacturing and pre-clinical development into a first clinical study in patients with certain solid tumors.
The company’s technology was invented by Prof. Dr. Hansjoerg Eibl at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen. It was applied, among others, in various in vitro and in vivo studies by a research group at the University Hospital of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Munich.
FinSMEs
08/04/2016