Antabio SAS, a French antibacterial drug discovery company, and Bpifrance, announce that Antabio will receive EUR 1 million in funding to support its Antibiotic Adjuvant Factory (“The Factory”) dedicated to the discovery and development of new antibacterial treatments.
These funds will be used to discover compounds targeting key mechanisms of bacterial pathogenicity that will be co-administered with antibiotics to enhance their effectiveness against multi drug-resistant bacteria that cause severe human and animal diseases. This new funding follows an initial grant of EUR 742,000 received from Bpifrance in 2013 to support the setup of the Factory, which led to the rapid advancement of several drug discovery programmes within the company.
As the spread of antibiotic-resistance among bacterial pathogens becomes a major global health threat, the need for drugs with novel mechanisms of action has never been greater. With the renewed support of Bpifrance, Antabio will continue to extend and progress its drug discovery programmes, aimed at delivering preclinical candidates that will be taken to clinical proof of concept studies by Antabio and its future development partners.
“The first phase of the Antibiotic Adjuvant Factory has been highly successful, resulting in the advancement of two key drug discovery projects now progressing towards preclinical candidates and the initiation of several new lines of drug research”, commented Marc Lemonnier, CEO of Antabio. “A key innovative feature of the Factory, and instrumental in its success, has been the flexibility to assess multiple projects and take these rapidly to early go/no-go decision points. Our portfolio approach has allowed Antabio to rapidly transfer resources between projects and to move forward the ‘quick winners’. We are now taking this approach to the next level and will be looking to accelerate value creation through strategic partnerships”.
The company aspires to become a world leader in the discovery and development of novel antibacterial treatments including antibiotic adjuvants. With the support of Bpifrance, Antabio and its partners will be well positioned to provide the pharmaceutical industry with new validated drugs that will reinvigorate the global antibacterial pipeline against antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.
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 Bpifrance
Since the 1 January 2013, Bpifrance, the French public investment bank, brings together the financing activities of OSEO (innovation, guarantee, credit) and those of equity investments led by FSI, FSI Régions et CDC Entreprises. Its ambition is to help businesses, ranging from start-ups to medium-sized companies, and occasionally large companies, to innovate, invest, grow and export. Bpifrance, by sharing the risks with its private and public partners, provides a continuum of financing, from short-term credits to equity capital, that meets the needs relating to each stage of businesses life cycle.