UCB, Ysios lead EUR 50m Series A for SpliceBio

The round was joined by new investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Gilde Healthcare, Novartis Venture Fund, and existing shareholder Asabys Partners.

SpliceBio said the round was oversubscribed. Ysios and Asabys seeded the company in 2020. 

The EUR 50m round is the largest Series A for a Spanish biotech company on record. Biopharma company Sanifit previously raised a EUR 55m Series D. 

SpliceBio exploits protein splicing to develop gene therapies, which involves the introduction, removal or change in genetic material to treat a specific genetic disease. It has a protein splicing platform that makes the delivery of gene therapies through a commonly used vector, Adeno-associated viruses (AAV), easier and more efficient. 

The company said that the small packaging capacity of AAVs is a major challenge for the development of novel gene therapies but the splicing platform enables large genes to be delivered. 

The proceeds will be used to build a pipeline of new therapy programmes, while also advancing an existing programme for Stargardt disease: a genetic condition that causes childhood vision loss. It affects 80,000 people in the US and Europe. 

The future programmes will focus on ophthalmology, but SpliceBio said that the platform has been validated in several other organs. 

UCB launched a EUR 150m venture fund in 2017 to invest in novel treatments for serious diseases. It has a portfolio of nine therapy companies. 

Co-lead investor Ysios is a Spain-based life sciences venture capital fund. It held a final close for Ysios BioFund III on EUR 216m in May 2021; the vehicle expects to invest in 15 European companies, deploying tickets of EUR 5m-10m. 

Company
SpliceBio is a biotechnology company exploiting protein splicing to develop gene therapies. Its proprietary platform enables the efficient delivery of large genes with adeno-associated vectors (AAV) and is based on technology developed in the Muir Lab at Princeton. 

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