Joint CeMM-IST Austria start-up develops new class of drugs targeting solute carrier proteins
Solgate closes its first financing round with IST cube and private investors
Solgate GmbH, an Austrian early-stage biotech company, announces the completion of its first financing round from a group of venture and private investors.
Solgate Co-Founders (from left to right): Georg Winter, Stefan Kubicek, Ariel Bensimon, Giulio Superti-Furga, Gaia Novarino.
© Thomas Zauner / IST Austria
Solgate was incorporated in 2020 by a high-profile founding team and with intellectual property from the leading research institutions CeMM, the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and IST Austria (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), with support from the Austrian business agency (AWS). The company applies methods from chemistry, cell biology, and advanced analytics to develop drugs that target membrane transporters known as solute carrier proteins (SLCs) - a novel, largely unexploited, and highly promising class of drug targets. The company is located at IST PARK, the technology park adjacent to the campus of IST Austria.
Alexander Schwartz, Partner at IST cube, comments: “We are very happy to work with Solgate, where a top-team of renowned researchers who have pioneered the field of SLCs, are applying a new approach towards drug discovery. On top of the synergies among the founding team, we see additional synergies emerging from the cooperation of scientists from different institutions, in this case IST Austria and CeMM. We are happy to participate in this investment round and are looking forward to the next steps together with the founders and fellow investors.”
Giulio Superti-Furga, CeMM Director, and Co-Founder of Solgate, remarks: “Solgate is the first start-up born out of a cooperation between CeMM and IST Austria and the sixth startup company, which has been created based on CeMM’s intellectual property and know-how. We are grateful for the trust of the investors and are certain that Solgate will be a great success.”
“Membrane transporters, such as SLCs are exciting therapeutic targets that show promise in the development of breakthrough treatments for challenging diseases. We see an opportunity for Solgate to benefit from advances in technology and SLC biology, to create and develop new drug candidates targeting SLCs. We are thrilled to have the support and domain expertise of our investors and look forward to accomplishing our vision even more rapidly together”, adds Ariel Bensimon, co-founder and CEO of Solgate.
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