{"id":1047,"date":"2023-04-17T11:42:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T11:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cic.vc\/?p=1047"},"modified":"2023-12-14T15:43:13","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T15:43:13","slug":"vcs-complement-european-biotech-with-79m-for-retinal-aav-gene-therapy-trial-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cic.vc\/vcs-complement-european-biotech-with-79m-for-retinal-aav-gene-therapy-trial-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"VCs &#8216;Complement&#8217; European biotech with $79M for retinal AAV gene therapy trial next year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The disease, which leads to blindness, gots its first approved treatment this year via Apellis\u2019 Syfovre. Iveric Bio is close behind.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"text-small\">\u00a0By Kyle LaHucik, Associate Editor<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Like those drug developers, the UK and German startup is going after the complement cascade, thought to contribute to multiple diseases. Instead of frequent injections, Complement wants a one-and-done gene therapy to thwart the onset of blindness, and the biotech will test that approach starting in September or October 2024, CEO and managing director Rafiq Hasan told Endpoints News.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">\u201cUp until now, there was always some question marks. Is complement the right approach for the treatment of GA?\u201d Hasan said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">The funding will take Complement through the end of 2026. By the middle of that year, the biotech expects to be \u201csitting on some nice data,\u201d Hasan said. Complement hopes to gather data that could maybe spur partnership talks, he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">While others are pulling back on viral-based gene therapies like AAV, Hasan said Complement sees strong potential for potency in its lead asset CTx001 and there\u2019s a precedent in Luxturna, Novartis\u2019 AAV for the eye. He spent more than a decade at the Swiss Big Pharma in the 2000s, mostly in the ophthalmology space. The biotech will disclose preclinical data in the coming week, the CEO added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Formed in 2021 out of the University of Manchester, the biotech is focused on complement receptor 1, which Hasan described as \u201cone of the most potent co-factors in actually modulating the activity of C3, and C3 is really this pro-inflammatory part of the cascade. That\u2019s the central part that really drives a lot of the pathology in geographic atrophy.\u201d Apellis\u2019 Syfovre targets C3 and Iveric\u2019s avacincaptad pegol, up for an Aug. 19 FDA decision, is a C5 inhibitor.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Complement has created a smaller version of CR1 that it can package into AAV and deliver via sub-retinal injection so it will \u201cconvert the eye into a factory for this truncated CR1 that then modulates complement activity in the eye.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">The five-employee biotech is expecting to hire a chief technology officer and medical chief in the coming quarter or two, Hasan said, after bringing on chief scientific officer Dennis Keefe last fall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">A natural history study is underway for genetic profiling, imaging and understanding of the systemic complement protein levels of an expected 250 people, most of whom the biotech hopes will then enroll in the Phase Ib, the CEO said. With about a dozen sites already in the UK, a move into the US is on the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">\u201cThe rationale is that we really enrich the population,\u201d Hasan said, noting GA is a heterogenous disease, with complement not contributing to about 20% to 30% of cases.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\"><strong>Beyond the eye<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"text-small\">Complement also sees potential in treating diseases above and below the eyes, including a rare kidney disease known as IgA nephropathy, Hasan said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Travere Therapeutics notched an accelerated approval for its drug Filspari in that indication in February.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Hasan said emerging evidence might also send Complement into the brain, where it could expand the pipeline to include Alzheimer\u2019s disease and line up partnerships before entering the clinic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">A lab is coming together in the next couple of weeks in Stevenage, UK, a subsidiary has been created in the US and the biotech is working with CDMO Pharmaron, Hasan said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text-small\">Belgian PE and VC fund Gimv led the Series A. Other backers include Forbion, BioGeneration Ventures, Panak\u00e8s Partners, Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), Hadean Ventures and Seroba Life Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The disease, which leads to blindness, gots its first approved treatment this year via Apellis\u2019 Syfovre. Iveric Bio is close behind. \u00a0By Kyle LaHucik, Associate Editor Like those drug developers, the UK and German startup is going after the complement cascade, thought to contribute to multiple diseases. Instead of frequent injections, Complement wants a one-and-done [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,29],"tags":[50],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>VCs &#039;Complement&#039; European biotech with $79M for retinal AAV gene therapy trial next year - Cambridge Innovation Capital<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cic.vc\/vcs-complement-european-biotech-with-79m-for-retinal-aav-gene-therapy-trial-next-year\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VCs &#039;Complement&#039; European biotech with $79M for retinal AAV gene therapy trial next year - Cambridge Innovation Capital\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The disease, which leads to blindness, gots its first approved treatment this year via Apellis\u2019 Syfovre. Iveric Bio is close behind. \u00a0By Kyle LaHucik, Associate Editor Like those drug developers, the UK and German startup is going after the complement cascade, thought to contribute to multiple diseases. 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