Alentis sinks $12.5m series A

Alentis Therapeutics, a Switzerland-based liver disease drug developer based on research licensed through regional tech transfer office Satt Conectus, closed a Sfr12.5m ($12.5m) series A round today co-led by venture capital firms BioMedPartners and BB Pureos Bioventures.
The round was backed by state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds and asset management firm Schroder Adveq.
Founded in March 2019, Alentis develops drugs for liver diseases including cancer and liver fibrosis based on its drug discovery platform, which is underpinned by a gene expression signature indicative of the likely prognosis in liver disease.
The spinout’s lead program aims to commercialise a humanised monoclonal antibody candidate to target an antigen pathologically linked to liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, a common form of primary liver cancer.
Alentis is headquartered in Switzerland but also has a subsidiary in Strasbourg, France and an outpost in Germany.
Andreas Wallnöfer, general partner at BioMedPartners, will join its board of directors together with Benoit Barteau, senior investment manager at Bpifrance and Martin Münchbach, managing partner at BB Pureos Bioventures.
The company’s founding research was undertaken in the lab of Thomas Baumert, the director of University of Strasbourg’s Institute for Research on Viral and Hepatic Diseases who is also affiliated to the Inserm Institute for Viral and Lever Disease, government-funded laboratory of excellence HepSYS and Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Strasbourg.
Baumert’s team was helped by collaborators including Yujin Hoshida, an associate professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Alentis has previously received financial support from BaseLaunch, a healthcare accelerator operated by regional enterprise board BaselArea.swiss and backed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation–JJDC and Novartis Venture Fund, respective investment arms of pharmaceutical firms Johnson & Johnson and Novartis, as well as their peers Pfizer, Roche and Roivant Sciences.
Andreas Wallnöfer said: “The pre-clinical dataset of the Alentis lead molecule is most comprehensive and convincing, they support the therapeutic potential in advanced liver disease of different origins.
“Prof Baumert’s research is truly translational and links pre-clinic and clinic through a prognostic gene expression signature, which is most valuable to optimally characterise the lead project and fuel further programs.”