James Cook University has formed its first spinout, Paragen Bio, which will commercialise autoimmune disease therapies derived from a blood-sucking tropical parasite.

Paragen Bio, an Australia-based autoimmune disease therapy spinout from James Cook University (JCU), secured A$6m ($4.4m) yesterday from investors including Australian government-backed Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF).

AbbVie Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of biopharmaceutical firm AbbVie, also supplied cash, as did Australian government-backed Healthcare Fund III, managed by VC firm OneVentures.

MRCF is managed by Brandon Capital and focuses on early-stage development of technologies emerging from Australia’s medical research institutes and affiliated research hospitals.

Paragen Bio is working on…

Subscribe to go deeper

GCV subscribers get access to all our proprietary data and deep-dive articles, as well as the global directory of CVC investors.



Not sure if you have a subscription?