Funding rounds continue to take place in Barcelona's emerging biotech sector. The biotechnology company Orikine Bio, which emerged from a research team at the Centre for Genomic Regulation of Barcelona (CRG), has just closed a seed capital round of 5.5 million euros that will provide it with the necessary financial resources to advance in the development and identification of new drugs to treat autoimmune and inflammatory diseases and to initiate the preclinical study phase. This funding has been provided by the Barcelona-based fund Sabadell Asabys, specialized in investing in innovative companies in the health field, and by the French venture capital firm AdBio Partners, which had previously invested in the company.
Orikine Bio was co-founded in 2022, with the support of AdBio, by doctors Luis Serrano, Ariadna Montero, Javier Delgado and Alejo Chorny, CRG researchers. It defines itself as a synthetic biology spin-off that develops an innovative platform for cytokine-based therapies, a type of proteins produced by the immune system that act as "soluble messengers" and allow immune responses to be controlled. Through the use of "precise algorithms" and a new "computational approach", Orikine has managed to design a new type of "optimized cytokines" which it calls Foldikines and which have "improved biological activities" that make them "very attractive as new drugs for therapeutic interventions.
Currently, the young company is validating the first series of drug candidates that will enter the preclinical phase thanks to the new funding. The objective is to create new therapeutic tools for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, but Okikine Bio highlights that "the versatility of the platform" will allow the development of new drugs for a wide range of immune-based diseases.
"Orikine Bio is the fifth spin-off launched by the Centre for Genomic Regulation in a short period of time, a fact that demonstrates that curiosity-driven research is a fundamental source for the generation of new ideas and the development of solutions for patients. The creation of this company has been possible thanks to the development of state-of-the-art computational and experimental tools combined with decades of experience in biochemistry," explained Dr. Lluis Serrano, director of the CRG. The application of these computational techniques, according to Dr. Ariadna Montero, "makes the protein design process very flexible and adaptable to almost any target, accelerating the development process of new drugs."
For Sylvain Sachot, partner at Asabys Partners, Orikine "addresses a great medical need," an opinion shared by Clement Bertholet, from AdBio, who emphasizes that Foldikines can become "a success in immunology." "We believe we have all the necessary ingredients for Orikine Bio to become a leader in the industry," he pointed out. For Orikine co-founder and CEO, Alejo Chorny, the trust of the two partners will decisively contribute "to developing transformative therapies that have the power to change the lives of patients suffering from immune-mediated diseases worldwide."
AdBio Partners, formerly known as Advent France Biotechnology, was founded in 2016 and has so far made 22 investments in life science companies in France, Belgium, Spain, and Ireland. For its part, Asabys Partners, founded by Josep Ll. Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs, has executed the investment through the Sabadell Asabys II fund, whose main investor is the bank chaired by Josep Oliu. The management company has 217 million in assets under management and has a portfolio of 14 investee companies.
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