Endotis Pharma (France) - Jan 2008

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01 January 2008

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Endotis Pharma has raised €25m in a second financing round led by the Wellcome Trust. Endeavour Vision, NIF Ventures and existing investor Sofinnova Partners accompanied Wellcome in the deal. Sofinnova had previously invested €4m in 2005 and €5m in 2006 bringing the total investment in the company to €34m.

Company

Based in Lille and Paris, Endotis Pharma was founded in February 2003 by scientist and entrepreneur David Béchard. The company is dedicated to drug discovery and development for oncology, thromboses and inflammatory diseases. It specialises in glycoscience, concentrating on protein-sugar interaction and synthetic molecular sugars, known as small glyco-drugs. The company is also developing therapeutic antibodies related to tumours through a novel and proprietary proteoglycan which was discovered by the company’s founders and named Endocan. Endotis Pharma has secured collaborative agreements with several key international research departments, including the CEA (French agency for atomic energy) and the CNRS (French centre for scientific research). The current financing round will be used to accelerate the development Endotis Pharma’s portfolio of licensed preclinical and clinical-stage compounds. The company is to concentrate its resources on advanced antithrombotics EP42675, EP217609, EP42675 and EP224283, the development and commercialisation rights of which were bought from both Organon and Schering Plough. Endotis will also seek to actively progress its in-house programmes EP37 EP8000 which originated from the company’s research in oligosaccharides. The research takes place in academic laboratories based in Paris and Grenoble. The company has 28 employees.

People

Charles Woler is president of Edotis Pharma. Daniel Schulmann worked on the deal for the Wellcome Trust, Olivier Valdenaire worked on the deal on behalf of Endeavour Vision, while Shuntar Kodama represented NIF SMBC Venutres and Rafaèle Tordjman represented Sofinnova Partners.

Advisers

Equity - Baker & McKenzie, Alain Sauty (Legal)Equity - Proskauer Rose, Etienne Mathey, Guillaume Kellner (Legal)Vendor - Orsay, Frédéric Lerner, Louis d'Urzo (Legal)

Sourced from: France unquote" 89 (Mar 2008)