![Cancer: Adcytherix launches with a record fundraising of 30 million Cancer: Adcytherix launches with a record fundraising of 30 million](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/6667ed17c72e5f72887bb3ab/1280x720/0110437689040-web-tete.jpg)
Record seed fundraising of 30 million euros for Adcytherix. Negotiated since September with the Israeli fund Pontifax Venture Capital, specializing in life sciences, the creation in March 2024 of this Marseille biotech is intended to take leadership in the development of ADCs. This class of new generation biopharmaceutical treatments, Antibody Drugs Conjugates or antibody-drug conjugates, promises a revolution in the treatment of cancers by exclusively targeting tumor cells without affecting healthy cells, unlike chemotherapy.
The necessary research being costly, it will have to move quickly, because the concept is endorsed by a number of biotechs and big pharmas, more than 65 of which revealed their intentions at the International Cancer Congress in Chicago (ASCO) in June 2023. We can gain twelve to eighteen months in this race,” estimates Jack Elands, co-founder and president of Adcytherix.
This is the whole purpose of this financial operation led by Pontifax which is investing 10 million euros, equally with a large Hong Kong biopharmaceutical laboratory, via the Swiss fund Pureos Bioventures. It is complemented by two other international venture capital leaders: KKR and RA Capital Management. “This pool has the shoulders to follow a Series A worth more than 100 million euros by 2025,” he anticipates.
New model
Jack Elands is not unknown in the oncology microcosm. In 2019, this professor of neuropharmacology created the company Emergence Therapeutics with the help of Kurma Partners, with 6 million euros in seed capital to test a biotech model without a laboratory. “This light, agile and responsive organization has demonstrated its interest in rapidly developing drug candidates,” he continues.
It allowed the company to raise 87 million just two years after its creation to develop ETx-22, designed to target the surface protein Nectin-4 frequently present on cancer cells, but rarely expressed by healthy cells. Pontifax and RA Capital Management were already included in this round. Last year, Emergence Therapeutics was acquired by the American laboratory Eli Lilly for 435 million euros.
“We can gain twelve to eighteen months in this race,” said Jack Elands, co-founder and president of Adcytherix. DR
With Adcytherix, Jack Elands will reproduce the same strategy by joining forces with the research platform specializing in antibody-based immunotherapy MimAbs. This independent company was founded at the end of 2020 based on the expertise of an academic laboratory at Aix-Marseille University. It employs around thirty experts organized in industrial logic to take charge of external research programs. Two have been identified for the creation of Adcytherix: they will use existing antibodies about to fall into the public domain for cancers lacking therapy: colon, stomach, esophagus and lung in particular.
The company is currently building its team of 10 to 15 people. It aims to enter the clinical phase in 2026 for at least three drugs, following the development plan established by Jack Elands and his co-founding partners, Carsten Dehning and Xavier Preville. According to the GlobalData firm, the market should then reach $15 billion, twice as much as in 2022.