The biotechnology company SpliceBio has secured 50 million euros in an investment round to enter the preclinical phase of the treatment it has developed to cure a pathology that causes vision loss, Stargardt's disease.
The financing line, one of the largest recently closed by a Catalan biotech, has been led by the Spanish fund Ysios Capital and the Belgian fund UCB Ventures. SpliceBio's executives highlight that the Series A financing round is, due to its amount, the largest completed by a biotechnology company in Spain. The main operations have been led so far by Ona Therapeutics (30 million), Minoryx Therapeutics (25 million) and Oryzon (20 million).
The capital increase also saw the participation of investors New Enterprise Associates (United States), Gilde Healthcare (Netherlands), Novartis Venture Fund (Switzerland) and Asabys Partners (Barcelona).
SpliceBio aims to launch a technology to the market before 2030 that allows combating genetic mutations through the introduction of a virus into the patient's body that carries a curative gene. Its globally unique research contribution consists of reducing the size of the gene, applying viral vectors to larger genes, so that they can act against and combat the degeneration of the patient's visual macula.
The company plans to commercialize the technology before 2030That is, SpliceBio's technology overcomes this limitation and allows the development of gene therapies with AAV (adeno-associated virus) vectors for the treatment of genetic diseases that require the delivery of large genes. For this reason, the company plans to enter other medical fields in the future.
The platform developed by the Catalan startup is based on technology developed at the Muir Lab at Princeton University after more than 20 years of pioneering research in the field of inteins and protein engineering.
To face the preclinical phase, and subsequently clinical trials with humans in coordination with national and international hospital centers, SpliceBio will progressively expand its team, currently consisting of nine people, with more highly qualified professionals. The company is established in the Barcelona Science Park.
The research team works from the Barcelona Science ParkSpliceBio hasits origins in 2014, with the creation of ProteoDesign, a biotechnology company dedicated to the research of oncological therapiesThe founders were researchers Miquel Vila-Perelló and Silvia Frutos along with Princeton University professor Tom Muir and Marc Montserrat, a pharmaceutical multinational executive based in the United States.
In 2020, after a first capital increase that brought Asabys Partners and Ysios into the capital, ProteoDesign refocused its attention on therapies to combat genetic diseases, addressing the main limitations of adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), which are the viral vectors used in this type of therapy.
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