ANTABIO Completes € 12.5M Series A financing
Antabio SAS, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibacterial treatments in areas of highest unmet needs, announced today it has extended its Series A financing round with an additional €5.2 million subscribed by investment funds Omnes, BNP Paribas Développement, and Sham Innovation Santé (Turenne Capital). Existing shareholder Galia Gestion also participated in this extension. In October 2017, Antabio announced a first closing of its Series A financing round for €7.3 million subscribed by investment funds iXO Private Equity, IRDI SORIDEC Gestion, Galia Gestion and Antabio’s historical investor and former President of OM Pharma Christophe Ricard. The second closing brings the total raised in Series A to €12.5 million.
The new funding will be used to accelerate the development of Antabio’s novel inhibitor of bacterial metallo ß-lactamases (“MBLs”) which will be combined with a carbapenem to fill an important gap in the treatment of drug-resistant infections. Superbugs carrying MBLs (such as NDM-1) are spreading worldwide and cause life-threatening drug-resistant infections that are deemed a critical medical priority by the WHO. There are currently no marketed inhibitors of MBLs.
The €12.5 million series A financing complements the CARB-X grant of up to $8.9 million awarded to Antabio in July 2017 to support the company’s Pseudomonas Elastase Inhibitor program (PEI) for the treatment of chronic Pseudomonas infections in Cystic Fibrosis patients.
“We are thrilled to welcome Omnes, BNP Paribas Développement, and Sham Innovation Santé to Antabio,” said Marc Lemonnier, CEO of Antabio. “We have built a strong international team of experts to combat the most urgent unmet medical needs in the antibacterial space. This extension to our series A, coupled with the substantial non-dilutive funding received from CARB-X, provides solid financial means for Antabio to take our innovative program into the clinic and move closer to this goal”.
Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health problem recognized as n°1 priority by the WHO. Today, 5 to 10% of hospital patients in the USA and Europe develop a hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infection with over 100,000 deaths due to drug-resistant bacterial infections per year and annual costs to public health exceeding €30 billion. On the horizon, alarming reports claim that by 2050 antimicrobial resistance will kill more people than cancer with an estimated 10 million people dying from resistant infections each year.
"Antibiotic resistance is one of the great challenges of our time. At Omnes, we were impressed by the innovative approach taken by the company to fight drug-resistant infections and we are delighted to support their strong international team to accelerate the development of their programs to the clinic" said Claire Poulard, Associate at Omnes.
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