Anokion Secures $37.5 Million, Big Names Invest

Anokion SA recently announced it has successfully closed a Series A financing round for $37.5 million. A group of leading life sciences venture capitalists, consisting of Novartis Venture Fund, Novo Ventures and Versant Ventures, co-led the financing with additional participation by private investors.

The spin-off from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has developed a technology for retraining white blood cells to induce therapeutic immune tolerance. Anokion will use the funds to develop clinical candidates in the areas of immune-masked protein therapeutics, autoimmune, and allergic diseases. First clinical trials are planned for 2017.

Following the closure of the financing round, Florent Gros (Managing Director of Novartis Venture Fund), Jack Nielsen (Partner at Novo Ventures), and Tom Woiwode (Managing Director at Versant Ventures) joined the Board of Directors. In addition, André J. Mueller and Harry Welten joined the Board as Independent Directors. Jens Kurth, who most recently directed Novartis’ key biologics projects, joins the management team as Chief Technology Officer. Jens has an extensive track record in the pharmaceutical industry in driving the development, regulatory approval, and commercialization of new drugs.

Jeff Hubbell, Professor and founder of the Institute of Bioengineering at the EPFL, Professor at the Institute of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, and academic founder of Anokion, said, “We are delighted that leading biotech venture funds have recognized the value and potential of our antigen-specific immune tolerance technology. We now have the necessary financial means to develop promising product candidates. We look forward to working with the new members in the Board of Directors and management team. They complement the strong scientific backbone of Anokion and bring proven business expertise as well as a strong industry network into our company.”

Anokion is applying its antigen-specific immune tolerance technology to reduce the immunogenicity of therapeutic proteins and to treat autoimmune and allergic diseases. The technology harnesses the power of natural immune regulation by engineering proteins to be perceived as “self” entities. Many therapeutic protein drugs are perceived by the body as “foreign” entities and are hence targeted for attack and clearance by the immune system. As a consequence, such treatments may become ineffective and potentially dangerous. Anokion’s technology provides a means to reduce immunogenicity of existing therapeutics and to enable development of proteins previously thought to be too immunogenic for repeated use.

Similarly, autoimmune diseases are caused by recognition of self-proteins as foreign by a patient’s immune system. This recognition triggers pathologic destruction of disease-affected tissues. Anokion will use its technology to retrain the immune system and restore tolerance to the relevant self-proteins.

The company has already demonstrated the efficacy of its technology by creating a tolerogenic form of asparaginase, a protein drug from E. coli used to treat a form of leukemia. When modified with Anokion’s technology, this foreign protein was not attacked by the immune system in mouse models. The company has also demonstrated the complete prevention of pathology in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes. Anokion is an exclusive licensee of EPFL’s patent filings covering this technology. For more information, visit www.anokion.com.