MARSEILLE, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- VECT-HORUS , a biotech company that designs and develops vectors that enable therapeutic molecules or imaging agents to be delivered to key organs, has just closed its Series D fund-raising. The first round, held in September 2020, raised €6.7 million and a second round in December 2020 added €5.3 million from private investors, bringing the total amount raised in these two rounds to €12 million.

This second funding round strengthens the company’s capital so it can pursue its ambitious programmes, focusing on identifying new vectors, developing theragnostic (therapeutic and diagnostic) agents in a clinical setting and validating its technology for delivering therapeutic antibodies and nucleic acids.

The health crisis has for the first time highlighted the enormous therapeutic potential (in terms of vaccination) of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles. These mRNAs are used to express proteins of interest in the body. In contrast, antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) inhibit the expression of a particular gene and therefore the corresponding protein.

Using the company’s VECTrans® platform, nanoparticles of mRNA, as well as ASOs and siRNAs, can be vectorized in order to treat both diseases with a genetic component and cancers.

‘Very promising in vivo results have been obtained, for example on skeletal muscle. This means that there is a great potential for our technology to transport nucleic acids and to treat muscular pathologies,’ said Alexandre Tokay, Chairman of VECT-HORUS.

These developments are examples of the agility of the VECT-HORUS teams and its dual economic model, based both on developing proprietary molecules and the availability of its VECTrans® technology to pharmaceutical and biotech partners to offer new methods for developing tomorrow’s therapeutic solutions.

About VECT-HORUS

VECT-HORUS designs and develops vectors that facilitate targeting and delivery of therapeutic or imaging agents to organs, including the brain and tumours. VECT-HORUS combines these different agents to its vectors that specifically target various receptors, allowing these agents to cross natural barriers (first and foremost the blood-brain-barrier) which limit access of therapeutic or imaging agents to their targets. The proof of concept of the technology has already been established in animal models using different vectorized molecules. Created in 2005, VECT-HORUS is a spin-off of the Institute for Neurophysiopathology (INP, UMR7051, CNRS and Aix Marseille University), headed by Dr Michel Khrestchatisky, co-founder. To learn more VECT-HORUS, visit https://www.vect-horus.com/.

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