ATB Therapeutics Raises €54 Million and Attracts a Pharmaceutical Giant

ATB Therapeutics has just closed a Series A of 54 million euros. The Walloon biotech company has attracted in particular the equity fund of the American giant Merck & Co.

It is one of the largest fundraisings in the life sciences sector in Belgium at such an early stage: ATB Therapeutics, a company from Marche-en-Famenne that is working on new anti-cancer molecules produced from plants, has just closed a Series A fundraising of 54 million euros.

This is an exceptional amount for a company that is still in pre-clinical development, especially when we know the difficulties that biotechnology and medical technology players are currently encountering in finding financing.

The cherry on the cake is that ATB Therapeutics, which started operations in 2018, has managed to attract the attention of two major international equity names, namely EQT Life Sciences and MRL Ventures Fund (MRLV). The former is the largest biotech fund in Europe, which was created in 2022 following the integration of European venture capital firm LSP into the EQT platform. MRLV, for its part, is none other than the venture capital fund specializing in innovative therapies of the American pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co Inc.

These two heavyweights co-led a financing round that also includes V-Bio Ventures (the fund of the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology), VIVES Partners (UCLouvain), the Belgian sovereign wealth fund SFPIM, Wallonie Entreprendre, Sambrinvest and existing investors, namely InvestSud, Noshaq, Luxembourg Développement and the Fournier-Majoie Foundation. The 54 million will be allocated in several tranches over the next five years.

ATB Therapeutics: Revolutionary therapeutic antibodies

But what prompted all these great people to invest massively in the small company from Marche-en-Famenne, which recently set up in the Boost Up Center, the new incubator of the Novalis Science Park , next to the CER research center? It is a pipeline of revolutionary therapeutic antibodies derived from a platform called ATBioFarm.

“We have a unique platform. No one else in the world can produce the biologics that we can produce. We are pioneers,” explains Bertrand Magy, co-founder and CEO of ATB. “This is very attractive for these investors. The platform allows us to bring to market new modes of action compared to other approaches. These will be new drugs that can be game changers in different indications.”

ATB’s technology is based on an antibody that specifically targets the cancer cell and an enzyme that kills the same cell by acting somewhat like a Trojan horse. This new mechanism of cell destruction has several advantages over current cancer treatments, as it increases the therapeutic response by attacking cells in a different way, while sparing healthy cells and limiting side effects and the risk of relapse.

It has nothing to do with chemotherapy or immunotherapy, but could possibly be used in conjunction with these other older treatments, as part of combination therapies that are used against complicated cancers to increase the chances of effectiveness.

A plant as a production vector

This new weapon, called ATBody, also has the particularity of being produced in a single step from plants, which act as bioreactors. “Standard technologies did not allow us to produce our ATbody,” said Max Houry, chief operating officer (COO) and other co-founder of the company.

“Production in plants turned out to be the solution, in this case a very particular species which is Nicotania benthamiana, a cousin of the tobacco plant, into which we inject a bacterium. In reaction, the plant will produce the desired molecule. The plant is only a production vector.”

The capital increase will allow ATB Therapeutics to expand and improve its cutting-edge ATBioFarm platform and accelerate the development of its antibodies for applications in oncology – initially for hematological cancers – but also in immunology. The technology will, in fact, very likely also allow it to tackle the complexity of autoimmune pathologies. “It’s about de-risking our technology. We think we can enter clinical studies within two to three years,” continues Bertrand Magy.

A pilot manufacturing plant

ATB Therapeutics expects to double its workforce in the next 18 months. Research and development activities will be expanded in Ghent – ​​which remains the mecca of biotechnology in Belgium – and will continue in Marche-en-Famenne, where ATB is setting up a state-of-the-art pilot manufacturing plant that will enable it to produce batches of molecules for future phase 1 and 2 clinical studies.

“We want to become autonomous, with the ambition of one day being able to carry out joint developments with pharmaceutical partners. For the future, we must ensure that we have our own capacities and not depend on a production partner to secure what is specific to our technology,” concluded Max Houry.

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(Featured image via Pixabay)

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First published in L’Echo. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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