Biovance Capital leads Series A Financing in Mondego Bio together with OrbiMed and Torrey Pines
Mondego Bio is a new Portuguese startup developing breakthrough cancer treatments.
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Biovance Capital Partners, a biotech venture capital firm based in Lisbon, Portugal, alongside co-investors OrbiMed, a leading healthcare investment firm, with over $17 billion in assets under management and Torrey Pines Investment, a specialty life-science investment company, announced the Series A funding of Mondego Bio. Headquartered in Portugal's main biotech park, Biocant, Mondego Bio is developing best-in-class protein tyrosine phosphatase non-receptor type 2 (PTPN2) inhibitors, providing a potential immuno-oncological therapy with an improved safety and tolerability profile.
As a critical negative regulator of the JAK-STAT pathway, PTPN2 functions to directly regulate signaling through cytokine receptors, including IFNγ receptor. Thus, enhancing IFNγ sensing and signaling through the inhibition of PTPN2 is a potential therapeutic strategy to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy regimens.
"This marks the first investment by Biovance Capital Fund I, which looks to provide crucial capital to develop transformational therapies for unmet medical needs, and attract world-class scientists and investors to Portugal," said Ricardo Perdigão Henriques, PhD, Managing Partner of Biovance Capital, the investment firm leading the round. "We are excited to join forces with top-tier US healthcare investors to help accelerate safer, more effective treatments—and, ultimately, better outcomes for patients battling cancer," added João Incio, MD PhD, General Partner of Biovance Capital. "We see this investment as an great excellent opportunity to advance a groundbreaking innovation with the potential to reshape current immunotherapy in oncology," said André Albergaria, PhD, Principal of Biovance Capital.
"With very compelling science, we are excited to back Mondego Bio's work on PTPN2 inhibitors in immuno-oncology, marking our first investment in Southern Europe and a successful collaboration with OrbiMed and Biovance Capital," said Nikolay Savchuk, PhD, Managing Partner of Torrey Pines Investment.
"It is great to have Biovance Capital as a local partner in Portugal supporting the development of this company," added Iain Dukes, PhD, Venture Partner at OrbiMed.
The lead programs are based on research initially developed by Eilean Therapeutics, an AI/ML supported oncology platform co-founded by OrbiMed and Torrey Pines.
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