Coave Therapeutics has raised €32m ($33m) in a Series A financing round for advancing its Advanced Vectors-Ligand Conjugates (ALIGATER) platform.
This platform claims to address the limitations in genetic payloads delivery to extra-hepatic tissues, including limited delivery efficiency, safety, and specificity of the tissue.
Novo Holdings and Bpifrance co-led the funding round, with additional participation from Invus and UI Investissement.
Current investors Fund+, Kurma Partners, Seroba Life Sciences, Turenne Capital, and Omnes Capital also contributed to the financing.
The ALIGATER platform allows for the ‘conjugation’ of targeting ligands on adeno-associated viruses (AAV) or non-viral vectors, improving delivery efficiency and tissue specificity. This approach also simplifies the manufacturing process by eliminating the need for prior AAV capsid modifications.
As a result, the company is poised to create gene therapies for a range of diseases, with a particular emphasis on the central nervous system (CNS), eye, and neuromuscular conditions.
With the new funding, the company anticipates progressing its ‘lead’ preclinical assets towards clinical development and aims to move two development candidates to clinical trial application (CTA) or investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies by next year.
In line with the financing, Emmanuelle Coutanceau from Novo Holdings and Jean Francois Morin from Bpifrance will join Coave's board of directors.
Coave Therapeutics CEO Rodolphe Clerval said: “We are delighted to welcome this group of top-tier investors who share our vision for the ALIGATER platform. This funding is a critical milestone for Coave as we work to develop a new generation of targeted, safer, and more efficacious gene therapies.
“It also reinforces our ability to expand collaborations with pharma and biotech partners, driving innovation in the field of genetic medicines for a broad range of diseases.”
Headquartered in France, Coave is supported by a consortium of international life sciences investors.
