Antabio, a biopharmaceutical expert in the fight against nosocomial bacterial infections, announces the raising of 309 K€ as a first part of its 1 million euro seed financing round. The young french start-up addresses a growing global health problem, recognized as n°1 priority by the World Health Organization. Antabio develops the next generation of antibacterial drugs that treat major hospital infections by blocking the virulence of pathogenic bacteria, including the multiresistant NDM-1 strains. Antabio’s drugs will improve current therapies and positively impact healthcare by reducing the mortality of patients and the associated costs.
The raising of 309K€ was conducted in partnership with WISEED, a crowd funding internet platform. « This transaction, which involved the constitution of a holding of shareholders in less than two months, is one of the most successful deals carried out by Wiseed to date” says enthusiastically Thierry Merquiol, CEO of Wiseed. After this first successful fundraising, Antabio is seeking 700K€ to finalize the 1 million euro seed financing before the end of Q2 2011. The funds will be used for the lead selection and optimization of Antabio’s antivirulence compounds. « Partnering with Wiseed’s innovative financing platform allowed us to secure the first third of our seed funding in record time » says Antabio’s CEO and CSO Marc Lemonnier. « Given the current investment climate, this is a great support to our business and a clear vote of confidence to our products. We are very excited. ». Discussions with business angels and institutional investors towards the closing of the seed financing round are currently underway.
About Antabio
Antabio is a private biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibacterial resistance-breakers to treat drug-resistant infections in areas of highest unmet medical need. Two of Antabio’s programs have received Wellcome Trust Seeding Drug Discovery Awards to date: [i] a novel, safe and efficacious inhibitor of bacterial metallo ß-lactamases to be combined with a carbapenem for the treatment of drug-resistant nosocomial infections and [ii] a first-in-class inhibitor of Pseudomonas virulence to be co-administered with standard-of-care antibiotics for the long-term management of chronic respiratory infections. The company’s lead product is expected to enter the clinic in 2019 with a fast track to anticipated marketing approval by 2021. Antabio has built a best in class, international team of experts in the field and is currently seeking to raise additional funds to progress its pipeline up to the next value inflection point. The Company is also looking to in-license additional assets focused on Gram-negative antibiotic resistant therapies. Please visit www.antabio.com and follow us on Twitter @antabio
About WiSEED
WiSEED, a Toulouse, France-based micro investment platform with focus on innovation, offers long-term investment in young, responsible and sustainable start-up businesses. Originality: investments are made directly on the net. With a few clicks, each individual investor can choose a start-up company and become its shareholder starting with just 100 €. http://www.wiseed.com