PEP-Therapy raises €2.75 million in Series A financing to advance its lead candidate, PEP-010, into the clinic

Series-A complements non-dilutive grant from French state innovation fund (FUI)

PARIS, April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- PEP-Therapy, a biotechnology company developing cell penetrating peptides as targeted therapies for the treatment of cancers, announces it has raised a €2.75 million in a Series A financing round. The financing was led by Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), with participation from Doorway, Magna Capital Partner (MCP) and Business Angels des Grandes Ecoles (BADGE) as well as existing investors Seventure Partners (Quadrivium 1 Seed Fund) and Dr. Bernard Majoie (former Chairman and CEO of Laboratoires Fournier).

The financing round is complemented by a €2.9 million grant from the French state innovation fund - Fonds Unique Interministériel (FUI) – previously received by PEP-Therapy, Institut Curie and Gustave Roussy to develop PEP-010 up to the end of Phase Ia/b clinical trials.

PEP-Therapy will use the funds to progress the clinical development of PEP-010, PEP-Therapy's lead Cell Penetrating & Interfering Peptide (CP&IP), for the treatment of advanced solid tumors. With this Series A funding, PEP-Therapy expects to generate promising Phase Ia/b clinical data in two indications where patients have a poor prognosis and limited therapeutic alternatives: triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and the platinum resistant ovarian cancer (OC).

Antoine Prestat, CEO and co-founder of PEP-Therapy said: "We are pleased to have raised these new funds from a syndicate of high-quality and international investors, as well as from our historic shareholders, who all share our ambition, commitment, and vision for PEP-Therapy's development. We are preparing for the first-in-human trials with PEP-010 and look forward to generating the clinical results that we hope will confirm the very promising results seen in preclinical studies."

Michele Marzola, Life Sciences Lead Investor at IAG, said: "The investment in PEP-Therapy fulfils our objective of supporting innovative companies that will make a difference in the clinic as well as have an impact on society. We have been impressed by the excellent preclinical data that we have seen, and we expect the Company to demonstrate that PEP-010 can address unmet medical needs in difficult to treat ovarian cancer and triple negative breast cancer in the upcoming clinical studies."

Philippe Tramoy, Partner at Quadrivium 1 Seed Fund – Seventure Partners, said "We look forward to working alongside the company's new investors to support PEP-Therapy in leveraging its CP&IP platform to generate a pipeline of best-in-class peptides, which promises to improve the treatment of aggressive cancers."

PEP-010 is the first of a new class of therapeutic peptides based on PEP-Therapy's innovative CP&IP technology. These innovative molecules penetrate cells and specifically block relevant intracellular protein-protein interactions, leading to the inhibition of key pathological mechanisms, without altering physiological mechanisms.

PEP-Therapy and Institut Curie, France's leading cancer center, have recently been granted approval from the French National Agency for Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) to start first-in-human clinical trial of PEP-010.

About PEP-Therapy
PEP-Therapy is a French biotechnology company developing first-in-class peptides as targeted therapies in oncology based on the Company's innovative Cell Penetrating and Interfering Peptides (CP&IP) technology. These innovative molecules penetrate cells and specifically block relevant intracellular protein-protein interactions, leading to the inhibition of key pathological mechanisms without altering physiological mechanisms.

PEP-Therapy, which was founded in 2014 and builds on research from Sorbonne University and Institut Curie, is backed by international investors: Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), Doorway, Magna Capital Partner (MCP), Business Angels des Grandes Ecoles (BADGE), Seventure Partners (Quadrivium 1 Seed Fund), and Dr. Bernard Majoie (former Chairman and CEO of Laboratoires Fournier, Founding Chairman of Fournier-Majoie Foundation for Innovation).

For more information, please visit www.pep-therapy.com

About Italian Angels for Growth (IAG)
Founded in 2007, it is the largest business angel network in Italy: more than 250 players in the business, financial and industrial world who invest time, skills and capital for the growth of innovative startups. In more than ten years of activity, Italian Angels for Growth has analyzed over 6,000 startups and its partners have made over 100 investments, for a total of 250 million euros invested by IAG members and its co-investors. IAG's business angels financially support innovative projects by investing their capital, but at the same time, thanks to the members' mix of skills, they support the startup founder in the definition of the business model in all its aspects.

About Doorway
Doorway is a Fintech platform - leader in online Equity Investing for the professional, qualified and corporate investor market - which presents a highly selected portfolio of startups and innovative SMEs validated through a thorough due diligence process based on the same criteria used by Venture Capital. Thanks to the collaboration with IR Top Consulting, which acts as financial advisor on AIM – Milan Stock Exchange, Doorway stands out as a unique alternative finance hub in Italy that can support companies from the startup phase to the listing.

About BADGE
Business Angels des Grandes Ecoles (BADGE), created in 2004, is a leading French Business Angels association with more than 280 members, and having participated in 21 fundraisings in 2020 of a combined value of over €5.3 million.

Its members are recognized leaders in all sectors of the industry and are willing to finance and support young innovative companies with high growth potential.

BADGE aims to:

• Identify and review promising innovative projects
• Conduct fund-raising for the most promising ones  
• Support the entrepreneurs with individualized business advice and key contacts
• Provide training and methodological support to its members

BADGE has thus financed more than 185 young companies since its creation. 

Find more on: www.business-angels.info

About MCP
Founded by a group of experienced business owners and close friends, MCP Magna Capital Partners Ltd. invests in bold teams building the future through technology. We invest in seed and Series A stage technology companies across the digital health, medical device, bio/healthcare, and enterprise software spaces. We proudly invested in Rewalk ($RWLK), Urogen Pharma ($URGN) and Yotpo.

About Seventure Partners
With €850m net commitments under management as of the end of 2020, Seventure Partners is a leading venture capital firm in Europe. Since 1997, Seventure Partners has been investing in innovative businesses with high growth potential in two fields: Life sciences across Europe, Israel, Asia and North America and Digital technologies in France and Northern Europe. Investments can range between €500k and €10 million per round, or up to €20 million per company, from early to late stage, growth and pre-IPO.

For more details: http://www.seventure.fr/en Twitter: @seventurep

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Related Links

http://www.pep-therapy.com