Date: 2015-05-05
Type of information: Series B financing round
Company: Themis Bioscience (Austria)
Investors: Wellington Partners (Germany - UK) Omnes Capital (formerly Crédit Agricole Private Equity) (France) - Ventech (France)
Amount: € 7 million
Funding type: series B financing round
Planned used: Themis will use the funds to progress its lead product candidate, a Chikungunya fever vaccine candidate, into clinical phase II trials. This Chikungunya fever vaccine candidate has demonstrated good immunogenicity, safety and tolerability in a Phase 1 clinical trial (Results published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, March 2015), Themis plans to progress this lead product candidate. In parallel the company will advance its other promising development pipeline in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur in Paris, originators of the measles vector platform licensed to Themis. The core technology of the measles vector platform has been developed at the Institut Pasteur in Paris and is licensed to Themis. It relies on the use of the standard measles vaccine as a vaccination vector. Genes coding for selected antigens from the chikungunya virus have been inserted into the genome of this well-established vaccine. The measles-chikungunya vaccine delivers the chikungunya antigens directly to macrophages and dendritic cells - the most potent and effective antigen-presenting cells, thereby triggering a specific immune response to chikungunya virus. This results in a powerful, antigen-focused immune response, which is most likely to confer long-term immunity as do measles vaccines.
Others: * On May 5, 2015, Themis Bioscience , a biotechnology company developing innovative prophylactic vaccines for emerging tropical infections, announced the first closing of € 7 Million in a Series B financing of up to € 10 Million, led by new investor Wellington Partners. Existing investors Ventech and Omnes Capital (formerly Crédit Agricole Private Equity) also participated in the round. Dr Regina Hodits, General Partner at Wellington Partners will join Themis’ Board. In 2011, Themis raised € 5 Million in a series A financing following a seed financing round from Austria Wirtschaftsservice (AWS) in 2009, and other substantial financial contributions from Austrian national funding agencies like FFG and Inits. Themis also announced the new structure of its Board with Dr Gerd Zettlmeissl being named Chairman of the Board. Dr Zettlmeissl spent more than 20 years in executive positions in the international pharmaceutical and vaccine biotech industry. From 2005 until May 2011 he served as CEO of Intercell AG. Experienced biotech and vaccine industry expert Dr Jean-Paul Prieels will join as a new member the expanded board. He served as Senior Vice President of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals until January 2011, led GSK’s global vaccine R&D development activities and was Head of Research for GSK Vaccines.
Therapeutic area: Infectious diseases
