This major financial support, provided through the EU Horizon Europe program, will enable Apmonia Therapeutics to perform clinical perations in Europe, while strengthening its portfolio of products aimed at various forms of cancers.
REIMS, France, July 17, 2024 – Apmonia Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing disruptive cancer therapies, announced today that it has been selected by the European Innovation Council (EIC) to receive funding up to €9.5 million to accelerate the development of its unique
discovery platform targeting the tumor extracellular matrix.
The EIC equity investment will be made through its Accelerator Fund, designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to develop and scale disruptive innovations. The last call was one of the most competitive since it attracted almost 1000 applications across Europe.
A new drug class in oncology
Apmonia Therapeutics is a pioneer in the study of the extracellular matrix (ECM), a dense mass of proteins formed by solid tumors to act as a rotective microenvironment. The ECM allows cancer cells to thrive, adapt and evade therapies, and spread to other tissues. Targeting ECM proteins is a promising strategy for treating solid tumors. Apmonia Therapeutics have a discovery platform using powerful computational simulation models together with wet lab validation, to focus on disrupting the tumor ECM, hence leading to the development of anti-cancer therapeutics.
Over the last few years, the company has developed a pipeline of novel peptides targeting the ECM, with strong proof-of-concept in multiple solid cancers, including ovarian cancer – one of the deadliest cancers, Apmonia Therapeutics’ first clinical application.
Among the EIC supports, the €2.5 million grant will mostly support Apmonia Therapeutics’ upcoming clinical trials.
The €7 million equity investment commitment is dedicated to moving the company’s other pipeline assets forward, keeping improving the discovery platform, and enabling company growth.
Dr. Albin JEANNE, President of Apmonia Therapeutics, says: “We are thrilled our technology has been validated by the European Innovation Council as a potential game-changer in the way life-threatening cancers are treated. This investment will support our first clinical trial in Europe and will enable us to strengthen the development of our product pipeline. Our goal is to develop effective treatments to help millions of people fighting solid tumors, while establishing a European leader in this new drug class”.
Apmonia Therapeutics is in the process of preparing a new funding series to finance its development and is currently building a syndicate to close the investment round.
About Apmonia Therapeutics:
Apmonia Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing a pipeline of targeted therapies for various solid cancers, based on specific and selective targeting of the tumor microenvironment.
Leveraging recent advances in protein and peptide computational engineering, as well cutting-edge screening and validation technologies, Apmonia Therapeutics is particularly focused on developing new therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat solid cancers.
www.apmonia-therapeutics.com
About EIC accelerator:
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator is a funding program under the EU Horizon Europe that supports game-changing innovations that could create new markets or disrupt existing ones in Europe and worldwide. A unique feature of the EIC is that it provides funding as a combination of grants and equity investments. The equity investments will be made through the EIC Fund, EIC’s dedicated investment arm which attracts other investors to increase the overall investment and allows
for the scale-up of start-ups and SMEs