Enedra Therapeutics, a London-based drug discovery and development company, has secured venture financing and non-dilutive funding through UKRI’s Innovate UK Future Economy Investor Partnerships programme to support the development of next-generation precision therapies for advanced, genetically heterogeneous cancers.
The financing round was supported by CD3, o2h Ventures, and follow-on investor Cancer Research Horizons, all of which in addition bring significant experience in target validation and drug discovery and development.
Enedra is building its bioinformatics platform and enabling a portfolio of targets towards drug discovery, aiming to create personalised medicines that address the large unmet needs of patients with advanced, complex, and heterogeneous tumours, a formidable medical need in cancer treatment. The next steps for the company are to progress the drug discovery programmes and the validation of patient selection biomarkers and to expand the leadership team ahead of raising the next round of financing.
Advanced cancers become increasingly genetically complex and heterogeneous. Chromosomal instability is one of the drivers of this heterogeneity and enables cancer to adapt to therapeutics and external stresses, resulting in tumours where all cells carry an imbalanced, reshuffled, and unstable genome. Due to an unstable genome, cancer cells rely on survival mechanisms that are not essential for normal cells. Leveraging this insight, Enedra harnesses the power of its proprietary bioinformatics platform, CASPAROV, to uncover drug targets crucial for cancer cell survival and specific biomarkers that predict treatment response.
Patrick Chaltin, the Managing Director of CD3, will join the Board of Directors. O2h Ventures also joins as an investor. O2h is a key supporter of Enedra’s Innovate UK Future Economy Investor Partnerships grant. The fund invests in the most promising biotech therapeutic opportunities in the UK at their early stage. Cancer Research Horizons, who in partnership with Deep Science Ventures supported the creation of Enedra Therapeutics, continued with further backing of Enedra’s new round.
Such support from our new and existing seasoned investors and from Innovate UK signifies the increasing interest around what our technology and team can offer in tackling the challenge of CIN and tumour heterogeneity to bring new therapies for patients with advanced cancer to life. Our experienced team of scientists are already making significant strides in delivering a robust pipeline of these much-needed therapies. The future holds incredible promise, and we are incredibly excited about it.
Andreas Ballis, Founder-CEO of Enedra Therapeutics
We are thrilled to support Enedra and its team in these early stages, helping them build a strong, mature drug discovery pipeline. What attracted us to Enedra is the combination of an experienced drug-hunting team and a cutting-edge bioinformatics platform, which together deliver innovative approaches to address high unmet needs in cancer, along with biomarkers that predict treatment response.
Patrick Chaltin, Managing Director of CD3
We are very excited to support Enedra on this journey. Target selection is key in embarking on new drug discovery projects, and the CASPAROV platform for this, coupled with the non-dilutive funding award and highly experienced founding and leadership team in developing cancer therapeutics made this attractive.
Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures
About Enedra Therapeutics
Enedra Therapeutics is a London-based therapeutics company developing next generation of precision therapies for advanced, genetically heterogeneous cancers.
Enedra leverages CASPAROV, a technology platform that evaluates instability, defines genomic heterogeneity and discovers specific pharmacological targets resulting from it, along with patient-specific biomarkers that predict treatment response.
Enedra’s co-founding team brings extensive expertise in drug discovery, patient biomarker development and their commercial translation and the team is supported by an advisory board with experience spanning oncology drug discovery, computational biology and cancer evolution. Enedra Therapeutics was created through a partnership between Deep Science Ventures and Cancer Research Horizons.
About CD3
The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) is an investment fund and drug discovery center created by KU Leuven to drive the translation of innovative research into clinical applications. It provides expert drug discovery capabilities and financial support to academic research groups and small companies to help develop groundbreaking medicines. CD3 has established numerous collaborations with academic institutions, leading to successful partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and has co-created several early-stage biotech companies.
About Deep Science Ventures
Deep Science Ventures is creating a future where humanity and the planet thrive, combining available scientific knowledge and founder-type scientists into high-impact ventures. Deep Science Ventures operates in 4 sectors: Agriculture, Climate, Computation and Pharmaceuticals, tackling the challenges defining those areas by taking a first-principles approach and partnering with leading institutions.
About Cancer Research Horizons
Cancer Research Horizons is the innovation engine of Cancer Research UK – the world’s largest charitable funder of cancer research. It brings together world-leading minds, bold ideas and the right partners to bridge the gap between academic research and taking drugs to market. It focuses on the tougher, more profound ideas that can lead to true innovation, translating them into effective treatments and diagnostics for cancer patients.
To date, it has played an instrumental role in forming over 70 start-ups. It has helped bring 14 cancer drugs to market, borne out of Cancer Research UK’s pioneering research. Through these drugs, it has enabled in excess of 6 million courses of treatment for cancer patients across the world.
