FUND+ PEOPLE INVESTMENT STRATEGY PORTFOLIO YOUR PROJECT NEWS CONTACT US CURRENT What services do we provide? CURRENT INVESTMENTS The below list includes all current portfolio companies managed by Fund+ Minoryx is a clinical stage biotech company leading the development of new therapies for orphan CNS diseases with a high unmet medical need. The company’s lead program is MIN-102, currently in clinical trials for X-linked Adrenoleukodystrophy and Friedreich’s Ataxia. The Minoryx team is made up of a group of experts with several decades of experience in biotech and pharma. The company is backed by a syndicate of experienced investors and has support from a network of other organizations. Minoryx was founded in 2011 and has operations both in Spain (Mataró, Barcelona) and Belgium (Charleroi Brussels South Biopark). Website Aelin Therapeutics is founded by VIB and its partner universities KU Leuven, VUB and UGent, based on the groundbreaking work of renowned structural biologists Prof Joost Schymkowitz and Prof Frederic Rousseau. Using the Pept-in™ platform technology, Aelin can create a complete new class of antibiotics and first-in-class therapeutics against high-value undruggable human targets. The technology harnesses the power of protein aggregation to specifically induce functional knockdown of a target protein. The company is based on a very comprehensive preclinical Proof of Concept data package illustrating different applications of the technology such as in bacteria and cancer cells, but also in fungi, viruses and plant cells, with publications in high impact journals including Science. Website Coave Therapeutics (previously called Horama) is a clinical-stage biotech company that develops gene-therapy treatments, based on recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors, targeting rare inherited retinal diseases. Horama was founded in 2014 by a complementary team of world-renown academic researchers who conducted, in 2011, one of the first clinical trials of gene therapy applied to ophthalmology in France, including: Philippe Moullier, Christian Hamel (1955-2017) and Vasiliki Kalatzis, from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM); and Michel Weber and Guylène Le Meur, from the Nantes University Hospital in France. Website Immunic Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech company founded in 2016 with a pipeline of selective oral immunology therapies aimed at treating chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Immunic, Inc. is headquartered in New York. Its subsidiary, Immunic AG, is based in Graefelfing near Munich, Germany, where the company’s research and development activities are conducted. Additional subsidiaries are located in Halle/Saale, Germany, and Melbourne, Australia. Immunic is developing three orally available small molecule products: Lead development program, IMU-838, currently is in phase 2 clinical development for COVID-19, relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis and, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, primary sclerosing cholangitis. IMU-935 is an inverse agonist of the nuclear receptor RORγt and currently in phase 1 clinical development. IMU-856 targets the restoration of the intestinal barrier function and currently is in advanced preclinical development. Website OCTIMET Oncology NV acts as a translational accelerator, focusing on creating value for investors and patients by providing rapid clinical proof of concept for cancer therapies through innovative clinical development strategies and patient centered biomarker approaches. OCTIMET was set-up in 2016 and is run by a highly experienced management team. The current focus is on its clinical stage asset OMO-1, a highly selective small molecule MET inhibitor that will be developed with specific biomarkers, whilst an additional late pre-clinical stage oncology asset OMO-2 will also enter the portfolio. Website eTheRNA Immunotherapies is a clinical-stage biotech company applying mRNA- based immunotherapies to the treatment of cancer. eTheRNA’s goal is to commercialize these immunotherapies to deliver long lasting clinical remission to cancer patients. The company is a spin-off of the ‘Vrije Universiteit Brussel’ (VUB), based on proprietary research by Prof Kris Thielemans, and is backed by a strong international syndicate of investors. eTheRNA’s TriMix platform comprises three mRNAs encoding proteins (caTLR4, CD40L and CD70) that work to deliver optimal activation of dendritic cells. These cells behave as immune response mediators and mobilize the immune system to attack cancer cells through inducing powerful T-cell responses. Website Novadip Biosciences, a biomedical spin-off company from the University of Louvain (UCL, Belgium) and its academic hospital, (Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc), is developing innovative solutions for critical tissue reconstruction. Using its proprietary technology platform for tissue engineering and manufacturing, Novadip is addressing the need for critical size bone and skin reconstruction in patients who currently have limited or no effective treatment options. Novadip’s first product is being tested in a phase 1/2a clinical trial in spinal fusion patients. A second product, specifically designed for large bone defects, is currently enrolling patients with non-healing bone fractures (bone non-union) in a phase 1/2a clinical trial. Novadip is also developing a regenerative skin product aimed at reconstruction of large skin defects or grafts and is using its technology platform to develop “off-the-shelf” products to address additional, larger clinical indications. Website iTeos Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company targeting metabolism of the tumor microenvironment to develop small molecule immunomodulators for cancer treatments. iTeos is building its activities upon the unparalleled expertise of the Ludwig Cancer Research (LICR) – a world-class Research Institute in the fields of tumor immunology, therapeutic cancer vaccines, cancer biology and translational medicine in cancer. iTeos endeavours to develop small molecules designed to target the tumor microenvironment by inhibiting cancer-induced immune suppression. Targeting such resistance mechanisms will enhance the clinical efficacy of both standard of care treatments as well as the newer immunomodulatory therapies based on the blockade of immune checkpoints (e.g. anti-CTLA4, anti-PD1 and anti-PDL1 antibodies). Based in Gosselies, Belgium iTeos is a private company launched in 2012 as a spin-off of the Ludwig Cancer Research (LICR) and the de Duve Institute at the Université catholique de Louvain. iTeos raised €9,1M in 2012 from private investors, including LICR, Life Sciences Research Partners, Vives II, Hunza Ventures SCA, several high net worth individuals and from a Walloon government grant. Website Promethera® Biosciences is a Belgian pharmaceutical company, spin-off of the Université Catholique de Louvain, that develops innovative treatment based on allogeneic adult stem cell technology. Promethera® Biosciences’ mission is to discover, develop, and commercialize cell therapy products to treat liver diseases in an innovative way using allogenic progenitor cells harvested from healthy human livers. Promethera® Biosciences develops two products based on a newly discovered and patented progenitor cell type, the Heterologous Human Adult Liver Progenitor Cell (HHALPC): Promethera® HepaStem, a unique cell therapy product, to treat severe diseases of the liver affecting children and adults. The innovation resides in both the simplicity of the treatment, which doesn’t require radical surgery (compared to liver transplantation), and in the wide variety of liver diseases that can be addressed with the same product. Promethera® H2Screen and H3Screen, a unique cell model for the pharmaceutical industry to mimic metabolism and detoxification of new drugs by the human liver. The cell model is designed for the discovery and pre-clinical evaluation of new chemical entities. Website EPICS Therapeutics is a Belgian drug discovery and development company, incorporated in 2018 as a ULB spin-off, based on proprietary research performed in the lab of Prof Francois Fuks. EPICS develops innovative small molecules acting through novel RNA epigenetic targets for cancer treatment. Recent discovery efforts targeting DNA and histone modifications have already given some of the most promising drugs to treat cancer. Modifications to RNA are much more common than to DNA, further highlighting the huge potential of using RNA epigenetics for therapeutic applications. By targeting RNA modifications, EPICS aims to translate science into life-changing therapies for patients. Website Confo Therapeutics is a drug discovery company building a unique pipeline of GPCR targeted therapeutics addressing unmet medical needs. The company was founded in 2015 as a spin-off from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and VIB and capitalizes on the ConfoBody™ technology developed by Prof. Jan Steyaert. Confobodies are camel signle domein antibodies that stabilize distinct druggable conformers of flexible protein targets and reveal previously inaccessible structural features. Confo Therapeutics uses these ConfoBody™-stabilized functional conformations of GPCRs as a superior starting point for drug discovery empowering the discovery of novel agonists for better therapeutic intervention. Website EyeD Pharma was created in 2012 on the initiative of Professor Jean-Marie Rakic (Head of the Ophthalmology Department at Liège University Hospital, CHU), together with a group of other ophthalmologists and a few private investors. Currently, the company is developing an innovative drug delivery system based on a controlled-release intraocular implant. EyeD Pharma is initially focusing on the treatment of glaucoma, an eye disease that mainly affects people over the age of 45. Traditionally, glaucoma is treated by administering eye drops every day for the rest of the patient’s life. This drug treatment is very burdensome and causes local side effects, such as eye irritation. If the patient is not treated or is inconsistent in taking the treatment, glaucoma is accompanied by irreversible degeneration of the optic nerve, resulting in loss of vision (second biggest cause of blindness in developed countries). Website Ona Therapeutics (Barcelona, Spain) is a biotech company that specializes in the discovery and development of therapeutic biologics targeting tumor metastatic-initiating cells and lipid metabolism. Founded in 2019 by Salvador Aznar-Benitah and Valerie Vanhooren, it was a spin-off from ICREA and Advanced Studies, and the IRB Institute for Research in Biomedicine. Website Indigo Diabetes NV (Indigo) is a young high-tech medical device company founded by Danaë Delbeke and her team end 2016. Indigo develops the world’s first invisible sensor for people living with diabetes to address their need for accurate glucose monitoring with an improved user experience. Indigo exploits groundbreaking photonics technology that revolutionized the Internet during the last decades and now aims at transforming diabetes management. Indigo is based in Ghent, Belgium. Website ExeVir Bio, a spin out of VIB, the world-leading Belgium-based life sciences research institute, is harnessing its nanobody technology platform to generate robust antiviral therapies providing broad protection with a lead asset for COVID-19. ExeVir is developing treatments based on nanobodies for viral infections that may pose a significant global threat. It is developing a highly innovative and clinically validated technology based on nanobodies. Lead asset VHH72-Fc binds to a unique epitope of the spike protein expressed by a highly conserved region of the coronavirus genome, making it less likely that the virus develops resistance. This binding prevents the virus entering the cells. Website “Cardior Pharmaceuticals is a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery and development of RNA-based therapeutics designed to prevent, repair and reverse diseases of the heart. Cardior’s therapeutic approach uses distinctive non-coding RNAs as an innovative platform for addressing the root causes of cardiac dysfunctions. The company aspires to bring transformative therapeutics and diagnostics to patients and thereby make a lasting impact on the treatment of cardiac diseases worldwide.” Website Established in early 2020, as a spin-out of Institut Curie by Luc Boblet, serial biotech entrepreneur and Dr Eliane Piaggio, PhD, renowned immunologist in the Treg / IL-2 field (INSERM Research Director, Head of the Translational Immunotherapy Team – TransImm – at Institut Curie), Egle Therapeutics develops First-In-Class immunotherapies targeting immune suppressor regulatory T cells (Tregs) for oncology and autoimmune diseases. The key element of Egle’s core approach is the leveraging of its translational-based target discovery platform to unveil novel therapeutic Treg targets and computationally designed immunocytokines acting as antagonists or as selective Treg-agonists. Website Contact us Address: Groot Begijnhof 60 3000 Leuven Belgium Phone: +32 (0)16 90 50 00 Email: info@fundplus.be Recent Articles ONA Therapeutics Appoints Dr Michel Detheux as Independent Chair to Board of Directors Confo Therapeutics Enters Collaborative Agreement with Regeneron Immunic, Inc. Announces Enrollment of First Patient in its Phase 3 ENSURE Program of vidofludimus calcium (IMU-838) in Relapsing Multiple Sclerosis © 2019 FUND+- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. | We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPTRead More