Gimv invests EUR 4 million in biopharma company Topas Therapeutics confirming its commitment to life sciences
Gimv today announces a EUR 4 million investment in Topas Therapeutics, a biopharma company developing a unique immunotherapy approach to treat autoimmune diseases. This investment is part of a total Series A financing round of EUR 14 million from a consortium of specialized life sciences investors including Epidarex Capital, EMBL Ventures and Evotec AG.
Topas Therapeutics, based in Hamburg (Germany), has developed a unique technology for the induction of antigen-specific immune tolerance. This new approach has the potential to treat autoimmune diseases, allergies and drug induced immune reactions in a more efficient and safe way. The funds will be used to expand and accelerate the Company’s proprietary tolerance induction platform and to develop its products through proof-of-concept studies. The company is a spin-out from Evotec, a global drug discovery and development partnership company.
Karl Nägler, Partner of the Gimv Health & Care platform, on this transaction: “The technology platform that Topas Therapeutics has developed is within an emerging field that recently has gained increasing momentum with investors and pharma companies. Topas’ unique approach has the potential to fundamentally change the treatment of autoimmune disorders. We are excited to add Topas with its best-in-class technology and outstanding management team to our life sciences portfolio.”
Bart Diels, Head of the Gimv Health & Care platform, adds: “With this new investment in a promising biopharmaceutical company Gimv confirms its interest in and its strong commitment to the life sciences sector. After a significant number of successful divestments like ActoGenix, Covagen, Prosensa and Prosonix, we are now looking forward to expand our life science portfolio in our home markets and build a diversified Health and Care portfolio across the value chain, consisting of both earlier stage Life Science investments and more mature Health & Care Services companies.”
For further information we refer to the company press release in attachment.