Integra Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that creates next-generation gene writing tools, has closed a 1.5 million euro investment round with the venture capital firm Columbus Venture Partners.
The investment by the Spanish venture capital firm Columbus has been made through its third fund, Columbus Life Science Fund III FCR, launched in 2021 and endowed with 120 million euros. As a result of this operation, the managing partner of the firm, Damià Tormo, will join the board of directors of Integra Therapeutics.
The financial resources complete the seed round of the Catalan biotech company, which has obtained a total of 6 million euros, after raising 4.5 million in December of last year with capital investment from international funds AdBio Partners, Invivo Capital, and Takeda Ventures.
Columbus's interest in Integra Therapeutics responds to the value of "its excellence from the university," according to Damià Tormo, who adds that the company "is called to be one of the world's leading biotechnologies in gene writing in the coming years." Columbus has a long history of supporting innovative companies and has contributed with its investments to the growth of successful firms such as Viralgen, Askbio, PTS, Sanifit, or Recovid, among others.
Integra Therapeutics opens a new stage of development and innovation of the FiCAT platform prototype, one of the gene writing technologies that will allow solving the current technical limitations of gene therapies (size, precision, and stability of genes) and make them more efficient and safer for the prevention and treatment of genetic and oncological diseases with unmet medical needs. The development of the FiCAT platform also includes the preclinical validation process with in vivo and ex vivo models, and managing the patent portfolio between 2022 and 2023.
Integra Therapeutics' purpose is to achieve more efficient and safer gene therapies for patients "as soon as possible," acknowledges the company's director and co-founder, Avencia Sánchez-Mejías. "In rare diseases alone, we know that 72% are caused by genetic defects and that most do not have an effective therapeutic treatment," she explains.
Integra Therapeutics, co-created by doctors Marc Güell and Avencia Sánchez-Mejías, has recently incorporated Professor George Church, a pioneer in human genome editing, into the company's scientific advisory board. The biotechnology company was founded in 2020 as a spin-off of Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and is headquartered at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park.