Memo Therapeutics raises CHF 23 million

BK virus infection poses a high and unmet medical need to transplant success and presents a large (more than USD1 billion) and growing market (more than 15% p.a.) opportunity. The funding enables Memo Therapeutics (MTx) to advance clinical development of its best- and first-in-class neutralizing antibody, MTX-005, targeting BK virus infection in renal transplant patients through Phase 2 clinical development. In addition, MTx will use the funding to develop and expand its antibody pipeline and secure new partnering agreements.

The Series B financing round was led by Swisscanto Invest. The additional financing of CHF23 million was secured from a combination of strategic and financial investors, including Adjuvant Capital, Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, GF Group, Verve Ventures, Vesalius Biocapital and Zürcher Kantonalbank.

“We are extremely impressed with the power of Memo Therapeutics AG’s antibody technologies, which provide best-in-class B-cell repertoire coverage from any donor species and single-cell-based high-throughput functional screening capabilities, which enable direct analysis of millions of candidate antibodies,” said Dr. Andreas Wüpper, Director of Investments at Fresenius Medical Care Ventures. “We believe this approach is applicable to many therapeutic areas and look forward to seeing the results from clinical evaluation of the BK virus program.”

“Our unique approach to discover and develop novel therapeutic antibodies continues to generate impressive data. This progress has resonated with highly renowned strategic and financial investors, who we are happy to welcome in this oversubscribed extension of our Series B,” said Dr. Karsten Fischer, Chief Executive Officer of Memo Therapeutics AG. “This funding, together with the recent Swiss Federal government COVID-19 grant, will enable us to advance our two lead programs, MTX-005 and COVAB 36, into clinical development this year and to develop and expand our antibody pipeline, which includes cytomegalovirus (CMV) and Nipah virus.”

As part of the financing round, Dr. Andreas Wüpper, Director of Investments at Fresenius Medical Care Ventures, Dr. Christian Schneider, Managing Partner at Vesalius Biocapital and Dr. Philippe Dro, Partner at Adjuvant Capital will join the MTx Board of Directors.

MTx recently announced that it has received a CHF10.5 million commitment from the Swiss Federal Funding Programme for COVID-19 Medicines to advance COVAB 36, a potent, fully human monoclonal antibody administered via inhalation for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infections, into clinical development.

(Press release / SK)
Photo: Memo Therapeutics