The biotechnological research center IMIDomics has managed to raise 16.5 million dollars (14 million euros) in a financing round in which investment and venture capital companies DNS Capital, The Pritzker Organization, and TAO Capital, as well as biopharmaceutical Bristol Myers Squibb, participated. With this figure, IMIDomics obtains one of the most significant financings in the biotechnology and biomedicine sector in recent times in Spain.
For the director of the Vall d'Hebron Institut d'Investigació (VHIR), Dr. Joan Xavier Comella, "an investment of these dimensions for a spin off born from Vall d'Hebron's research represents great pride for our institution," and he also considers that it consolidates the Institute as a "global benchmark in the field of biomedical research."
The money raised will be allocated to the development of new drugs to treat immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (also called IMID), such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or psoriasis. All of these are pathologies that affect different organs but are related from a clinical, genetic, and immunological point of view.
IMIDs are caused by an activation of the immune system that leads to persistent inflammation and irreversible damage to certain organs and tissues. They significantly limit the quality of life of millions of patients worldwide, affecting between 7% and 10% of the global population.
"The investment in IMIDomics consolidates us as a global benchmark in the field of biomedical research," highlights the director of VHIR, Dr. Joan Xavier Comella.Currently, according to IMIDomics, billions of dollars are spent on treating patients with these diseases, but the drugs on the market are often "ineffective" or end up having numerous side effects.
IMIDomics was created precisely for this: to find, through research, new drugs that help patients receive better treatment.
The initiative to carry out a project of these characteristics is the result of an alliance between Dr. Sara Marsal, head of the Rheumatology Service at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital and of the Rheumatology research group at the same hospital, and Dr. Richard M. Myers, president and scientific director of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in the United States.
The company, which was created in Barcelona in 2015, is currently headquartered in California and was initially funded by American and Catalan investors.
IMIDomics conducts research thanks to the Precision Discovery Platform, a pioneer in the field of oncology, which brings together the clinical database of the Vall d'Hebron Rheumatology research group, and biological samples from more than 17,000 patients from the IMID-Biobanc (the world's largest database for the disease), also an initiative of Dr. Marsal.
IMIDomics was created in Barcelona in 2015 and is currently headquartered in CaliforniaThe therapeutic objectives set by the Catalan company with the funding obtained are the following: to control systemic and local inflammation caused by the pathology, prevent tissue damage, reduce functional disability, and achieve long-term remission of the disease.
For Dr. Marsal, IMIDomics' strategy "will fundamentally change the way drugs are discovered for these very complex diseases."