Enyo Pharma Receives A €2.5 Million Grant From EU Under The Horizon2020/SME Instrument Phase II Programme For Its Project MIMESIS

MIMESIS will accelerate and enable large scale development of ENYO Pharma’s novel discovery approach aimed at identifying new preclinical assets against infectious diseases and cancer from innovative drug discovery starting points inspired by viruses

LYON, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ENYO Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company currently focused on developing treatments for viral infections, today announced that it has received a grant of €2.5 million in response to its application to the highly competitive SME Instrument Phase 2 funding programme (6% success rate).

“Dedicated support to biotechnology SMEs closing the gap from lab to market”

The SME Instrument is part of Horizon 2020, the EU framework programme dedicated to innovation and research managed by the European Commission. It belongs to the pillar “Industrial Leadership” of H2020 and aims to support high growth and highly innovative SMEs with global ambitions.

ENYO Pharma’s MIMESIS project applied for the June 2016 cut-off under the topic “Dedicated support to biotechnology SMEs closing the gap from lab to market”. MIMESIS has been selected by an independent jury of four experts recognised for their scientific and business expertise. The company will receive 2.5 M€ corresponding to the financing of 70% of the total project budget (€3.6 million).

After a feasibility Phase that generated ENYO’s internal drug development programme on an autophagy target, MIMESIS will be expanded to an industrialised scale to accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic targets and innovative new chemical entities against infectious diseases and cancer.

Dr Eric Meldrum, ENYO Pharma’s Chief Scientific Officer commented, “We are very honoured to receive the recognition from the Horizon 2020 jury in what was a highly competitive process. MIMESIS represents a real paradigm shift in the development of new innovative drugs for pathologies where the medical need is immense. This financing will enable us to screen our library of original peptides and small molecules on hundreds of intracellular human targets previously untapped by the pharmaceutical industry.”

For this project ENYO Pharma has designed a proprietary library of 10’000 small molecules to modulate host cell biology and also capable of disrupting protein: protein interactions (PPIs) between pathogens and the host. This library of developable chemical templates will be screened in phenotypic assays for inhibitors of the replication cycle of several viruses (Influenza, RSV, HRV, Zika) and a mycobacterium (TB). As this library is designed to modulate host cell biology, it will also be screened for inducers of Immunogenic Cell Death (ICD) in tumors. With €3.6 million over 24 months, most promising chemistries will be the starting point for numerous hit to lead optimisation programmes funded within the EU grant. Those optimisation efforts focused on novel intracellular targets will generate valuable Intellectual Property. Upon completion of MIMESIS, ENYO Pharma will further optimise its best chemical series either internally or in collaboration with other pharmaceutical companies up to clinical proof of concept.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement n° 739086- MIMESIS

About ENYO Pharma’s approach to pharmaceutical discovery research http://www.enyopharma.com/science/principle/

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About ENYO Pharma SA - www.enyopharma.com