UTRECHT, The Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sapreme, a biotechnology company focused on improving the delivery and efficacy of macromolecule therapeutics, today announced that it has closed a EUR 15 million Series A financing round to accelerate the buildout of its endosomal escape technology platform and support the further progress of its proprietary pipeline and corporate development activities. Led by founding investor Aglaia Oncology Funds, together with Aglaia-associated partners, the round follows promising 2020 and 2021 preclinical data demonstrating the effectiveness of Sapreme’s endosomal escape compound, SPT001.
Sapreme was founded in 2016 to develop improved macromolecular therapeutics such as antibody targeted antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) for the treatment of cancer and other indications. Sapreme’s innovative endosomal escape platform is designed to allow therapeutics to reach their target without becoming entrapped by the endosome. Endosomal entrapment poses a significant hurdle for the drug discovery and development industry, currently limiting the development of a broad range of potential macromolecular therapeutics to ‘undruggable’ intracellular targets. An effective solution to endosomal entrapment could be of immense value to the therapeutic landscape, as it enables the development of truly differentiated therapeutics to such novel targets.
“The continued support of Aglaia and its backers is invaluable to us as we continue to showcase the potential of our platform and establish our proprietary therapeutics pipeline,” stated Guy Hermans, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Sapreme. “These proceeds will allow us to mature our platform and to generate preclinical data needed to showcase the full scope of our technology.”
In addition to earlier data supporting the use of its platform in oncology and in combination with various drug modalities, the company recently unveiled new in vivo data demonstrating its ability to significantly enhance delivery of oligonucleotides to the liver using GalNAc targeting – currently a mainstay in the therapeutic oligo development field. The data revealed consistent high levels of gene expression knockdown in the liver at reduced oligonucleotide doses.
“Having engaged in multiple studies with industry players throughout the past year, we see the opportunity to expand these collaborations to a range of new indications and drug modalities in the months ahead. Our current collaborators apply Sapreme’s endosomal escape technology to their proprietary drug candidates to improve intracellular target engagement manyfold, such as we have reported on earlier. We now look forward to further scale the platform and advancing our internal drug development pipeline, which following the Series A, we are well-positioned to do,” commented Henrik Luessen, Chief Business Officer of Sapreme.
About Sapreme
Sapreme’s mission is to develop next-generation macromolecule therapeutics by circumventing endosomal entrapment, thereby enhancing target engagement. The company’s proprietary endosomal escape platform improves the therapeutic window by enabling access to intracellular targets with minimal toxicity. This approach is applied for Sapreme’s internal pipeline and is available for partnering, without limitation to biologic modality or indication.
