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Seventure Partners Life Sciences Investing Update - H2 2017

Published: Jan 11, 2018

Paris, France – 11 January 2018 - Seventure Partners, one of Europe’s leaders in financing innovation and a world-leader in the venture investment in the microbiome sector, today announces its corporate update for July – December 2017.

“2017 ended on a high note.  Our Health For Life Capital™ investment vehicle has backed some truly remarkable disruptive technologies over the second half of the year and we look forward to continued success throughout 2018,” said Isabelle de Cremoux, CEO and Managing Partner of Seventure Partners.

Seventure Partners’ News

Seventure continued to strengthen its portfolio with a number of developments throughout the second half of 2017 and into early 2018.

Highlights include:

  • $13.2m financing of Anaeropharma Science, an innovative Japanese biotech using live bacteria to fight cancer – July
  • $26.1m raise for Push Doctor, Europe’s largest digital health provider, allowing for the Company to bring new products to market – July
  • €2.2m Series A financing of Berlin-based Machtfit, a company offering an integrated solution for German employees focused on health, nutrition and fitness – July
  • €6.5m Series C financing of LNC Therapeutics to drive forward the TEMYS project, which aims to restore the intestinal ecosystem by modulating the microbiome, especially Christensenella, decreasing inflammation and improving gut reaction – September
  • Eligo’s €15m Series A raise, allowing the Company to develop its platform and progress its lead eligobacterial (a sequence-specific antimicrobial) through preclinical and a Phase I trial – September
  • $43m Series B financing of food science company MycoTechnology Inc. Funds will be used to commercialise and manufacture Mycotechnology’s sustainable non-GMO vegan mushroom protein – September
  • Announced the sale of portfolio company Cambrooke Therapeutics, the global leader and innovator in therapeutic nutrition for unborn errors of metabolism (PKU) and ketogenic diet, to Ajinomoto Co. Inc.  The transaction delivered more than 55% IRR – November
  • Enterome’s €32 million Series D financing, allowing the Company to progress its oral FimH blocker, EB8018, for the treatment of Crohn’s disease and a novel immune-oncology candidate, EO2315, aimed to treat aggressive brain cancer – January 2018

In the News

Isabelle De Cremoux speaks of Seventure’s passion for microbiome investment and highlights portfolio microbiome companies in The Economist’s November article, Enhanced understanding of the microbiome is helping medicine.

Isabelle De Cremoux was named as one of the 15 Women All Biotech Fans Need to Follow Right Now in SiliconRepublic’s October article.

Seventure Partners was featured a key player in the success of the French VC scene in ValueWalk’s France’s VC scene is on fire (in a good way), October.

Isabelle de Cremoux provides insights into what she looks for, when considering investments in the health and nutrition sector, in the article ‘A Hunger for Investment: What makes a successful venture capital pitch?’ in Nutraceuticals Now Autumn 2017 issue.

Portfolio News – Life Sciences

Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), (NASDAQ: AAP) an international molecular nuclear medicine specialist, announced in October that it had received a $3.9bn all cash proposed tender by Novartis.  This follows a very positive year – in September, the Company received EU approval of Lutathera® (lutetium-177 dotatate) for Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine tumours. 

Domain Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and early development of small molecules targeting G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), announced in September that it had entered into an innovative commercial and scientific partnership with 5SATTS, to accelerate drug development in France.  The agreement will maximize the opportunities of achieving proof of concept in man.  This follows the license and collaboration agreement with Merck to develop adenosine receptor antagonists in the immuno-oncology field earlier in the year. 

In October, Enterome, a pioneer in the development of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics based on the gut microbiome, successfully completed a Phase I clinical study of its lead candidate EB8018, a potential new orally administered treatment for Crohn’s disease. Results showed that the drug was well-tolerated in healthy volunteers and demonstrated a pharmacokinetic profile that confirmed it was a gut-restricted, soluble molecule and therefore able to target the gut microbiome. The Company expects these results to support their plans to commence Phase II trials in 2018.

LNC Therapeutics, a company specialized in R&D of gut microbiota-targeted drugs for the treatment of obesity and associated cardiometabolic diseases, announced in September that it had appointed Sandrine Claus PhD as Chief Scientific Officer.

MaaT Pharma, specialized in the development of innovative treatments based on intestinal microbiota in onco-hematology and infectiology, announced in July that it had successfully completed recruitment of its Odyssée study. This trial aims to assess the efficacy of its drug candidate, MaaT001.3, using Autologous Fecal Microbiota Transfer on patients with Acute Myeloblastic Leukemia (AML), who suffer from iatrogenic dysbiosis as a result of chemotherapy. Final results of the trial are expected later this year.

Mauna Kea Technologies (Euronext: MKEA, OTCQX: MKEAY), inventor of Cellvizio®, the multidisciplinary confocal laser endomicroscopy platform, announced in October that Olivier Regnard was appointed as Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer.  The appointment followed the announcement earlier that month, that a study had shown significant cost savings when diagnosing benign pancreatic cancer cysts with Cellvizio®.  In October, the company also announced that Cellvizio® had received CE marking for use in robotic-assisted surgery.

In September, MDxHealth SA (Euronext: MDXH:BR), a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the treatment of cancer, announced the appointment of Michael K Brawer, MD as Chief Medical Officer.  In addition, results from a retrospective study published in The Prostate in August demonstrated that SelectMDx for prostate cancer, a non-invasive liquid biopsy test, correlates with mulitparametric MRI (mpMRI) and outperforms the PCA3 test, a current method of detection.

Mint Solutions, a company that builds tools to help nurses and doctors provide exceptional care for patients, announced in September that Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals was the first NHS trust to start using MedEye in the UK. MedEye ensures patients get the right medication at the right time, improving safety, saving lives, and reducing the costs of medication errors worldwide.

Nanobiotix (Euronext: NANO-ISIN: FR0011341205), a late clinical state nanomedicine company, pioneering the new approaches for the treatment of cancer, announced clinical and pre-clinical data from its ongoing oncology programs.  Its lead product NBTXR3 has a universal physical mode of action, which is designed for the local destruction of tumors.  Recently published data suggests NBXTR3 generates immunogenic cell death which could trigger a specific immune response to attack tumors.

Vedanta Biosciences, developer of a new class of therapies for immune and infectious diseases based on a rationally designed consortia of human microbiome-derived bacteria, announced multiple developments throughout November. It was awarded a $5.4 million grant from CARB-X to progress its lead oral product candidate, VE303, which aims to address Clostridium difficile, with the potential to target other bacterial infections. The Company announced shortly after that it had exclusively sub-licensed key IP from JSR Corporation to develop and commercialize microbiome-derived cancer immunotherapies based on live biotherapeutics. Vedanta Biosciences finished the month by announcing new translational medicine collaborations in cancer immunotherapy with Leiden University Medical Center and the University of South Alabama (USA) Mitchell Cancer Institute. They simultaneously announced the expansion of its translational medicine collaboration in cancer immunotherapy with NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center; researchers at these institutions are collaborating with Vedanta Biosciences to analyze clinical data from interventional checkpoint inhibitor studies, to better understand the role of the microbiome in immunotherapeutic responses.

Events

During October, Professor Denise Kelly spoke at both Discovery on Target in Boston and Drugs, Bugs & Beyond, Translational Approaches to the Microbiome at Harvard.  In November, the Seventure team attended Bio-Europe in Berlin, with Isabelle De Cremoux joining the Targeting the microbiome: From scientific evidence to regulatory approval panel.

Over the coming months, Seventure Partners will also be attending the following:

  • JP Morgan 38th Annual Healthcare Conference - San Francisco, 8-11 January
  • Microbiome Drug Development Summit - Paris, 29-31 January
  • Next Gen Immunology – Rehovot, 14-16 February
  • 5th Microbiome R&D and Business Collaboration Forum: Europe – Rotterdam, 21-22 March
 

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