Arctic Therapeutics announces €26.5M oversubscribed Series A financing
Funding will accelerate the company's anti-amyloid treatment for rare and common forms of dementia
Icelandic drug discovery and development company Arctic Therapeutics (ATx) announced the successful closing of a €26.5 million oversubscribed Series A financing from a broad syndicate of international investors.
The syndicate includes the EIC Fund, Iceland's largest privately-held investment firm Kaldbakur, Investcorp-backed Sanos Group, Swiss-based Cerebrum DAO, The Lurie Family Foundation – established by US billionaire Jeffery Lurie – as well as a consortium led by early investors and co-founders of Icelandic unicorn, Kerecis, and Copenhagen-listed Chemometec. Icelandic institutional investors and family offices also participated in the round.
"This funding represents a critical milestone in our journey to address significant unmet medical needs, from familial forms of dementia and Alzheimer's to novel treatments for inflammatory skin diseases. The new investors bring expertise and strategic value to the table, enabling us to accelerate the development of groundbreaking treatments," said Ivar Hakonarson, ATx co-founder and CEO.
The proceeds from the Series A financing will be used to advance ATx's two frontrunners, AT-001 and AT-004, further into the clinic.
Last year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved a pivotal phase IIb/III clinical trial evaluating AT-001 for the treatment of Hereditary Cystatin C Amyloid Angiopathy (HCCAA), a rare form of familial dementia. The new funding will allow ATx to explore the potential of AT-001, an oral treatment designed to prevent the aggregation of harmful amyloid proteins in the brain, in other forms of familial dementia, and eventually Alzheimer's disease.
"Recent advances in understanding the role of amyloid proteins and the critical importance of preventing and dissolving plaque formation in the brain underscore the transformative potential of our approach to significantly slow or even prevent these devastating diseases," Hakonarson added.
In addition to the AT-001 clinical trial, ATx is also planning to launch a phase IIa clinical trial for AT-004 in Europe post-financing. The therapeutic goal of this approach is to demonstrate safety and efficacy in acne vulgaris before expanding into other inflammatory skin diseases, including atopic dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis.
Additionally, ATx announced the appointment of Jeppe Ragnar Andersen, CEO of Sanos Group, to its board of directors.
"Sanos Group's proven expertise in dermatology and recent acquisition of NeuroScios, a CRO specialized in clinical studies in Alzheimer's, strengthens our alignment with ATx's therapeutic focus even further," Andersen said. "We look forward to supporting the ATx team on achieving its goal of bringing forward innovative treatments for dementia and skin diseases to millions of patients," he added.
Last year, ATx was selected to join the prestigious EIC Scaling Club, an exclusive community of Europe's most promising scaleups. The Club aims to accelerate the growth of its members, with a goal of scaling 20% of them into unicorns. This aligns with the EIC Fund's investment mandate to provide funding to European companies, which have the potential to meet the world's most pressing challenges.
"Investing in innovative solutions to address the global healthcare challenge of dementia is both a responsibility and an opportunity," said Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board. "In Europe alone, dementia affects over ten million people – placing immense strain on families, healthcare systems, and economies. By providing an equity investment in Arctic Therapeutics, the EIC Fund is supporting groundbreaking preventive treatments that have the potential to change the trajectory of this crisis, improve quality of life, and alleviate the burden on healthcare infrastructure worldwide," Georgieva added.
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