VectorY Therapeutics has raised €31 million ($38 million) to fund preclinical work on gene therapies against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzhiemer’s disease. Forbion led the seed financing in the Dutch developer of vectorized antibodies with the support of other investors including Eli Lilly.
AbbVie raised the profile of vectorized antibodies in 2018 and 2019 when it struck deals to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases with Voyager Therapeutics. That deal collapsed last year, but a small number of biotechs are continuing to work on the modality in the belief it offers a way to get antibodies to targets on the other side of the blood-brain barrier.
Amsterdam-based VectorY joined the field last year and, having broken cover with the support of Forbion in February, has now reeled in €31 million in seed funding. Forbion and “a leading global investment firm” co-led the round with assists from BioGeneration Ventures and Lilly.
VectorY will use the money to establish preclinical proof of concept for its vectorized antibodies in ALS and Alzheimer’s and to set up in-house manufacturing capabilities centered on a GMP facility in the Netherlands.
Establishing internal manufacturing capabilities will lessen VectorY’s reliance on constrained capacity at contract providers while furthering its ambition to make products faster and at a lower cost. The therapies in development at VectorY are based on adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors, technology that has been subject to capacity constraints because of the explosion of the gene therapy space.
Rather than use AAVs to correct genetic diseases, VectorY is using the vectors to hustle genes that encode for antibodies into the brain. By getting cells in the brain to make antibodies, VectorY may be able to get higher concentrations of the active agent to targets than is possible when antibodies are given systemically. VectorY said its AAVs have cell-type specificity to improve delivery and durability.
In conjunction with the financing, VectorY disclosed the appointment of Alexander Vos as CEO. Vos was previously CEO of VarmX, the developer of a modified recombinant blood factor X, where he was succeeded this week by Jan Öhrström. Vos landed the VarmX role after leading contract manufacturing organization PharmaCell to a takeover by Lonza.
Vos is joined in the C-suite by Sander van Deventer, who has taken up the post of chief technology officer. Van Deventer was previously executive vice president, research and product development at gene therapy pioneer UniQure.