Amsterdam-based Leyden Labs, a platform working to free people from the threat of respiratory viruses, announced Thursday that it has raised $70M (approximately €68M) in funding.
The funding round was co-led by ClavystBio and Polaris Partners, with participation from Qiming Venture Partners and continued backing from existing investors, including GV (Google Ventures) and Casdin Capital, who led the previous funding rounds.
The Company’s syndicate of VC investors now includes GV (formerly Google Ventures), Casdin Capital, F-Prime Capital, ClavystBio, Polaris Partners, Qiming Venture Partners, Invus, Byers Capital / Brook Byers, Bluebird Ventures, and Softbank Vision Fund 2.T.
The company will use the funds to support further development of its pipeline aimed at protecting against respiratory viruses, such as influenza and coronaviruses.
Leyden Labs is creating a new type of nasal spray for broad protection. One of these, called PanFlu, includes the monoclonal antibody CR9114 and is in development to prevent influenza.
The funding will help launch human studies for PanFlu and support research in the company’s Mucosal Protection Platform, as well as other projects.
“This strong support from investors validates our approach to providing broad, universal protection against current and future viral outbreaks,” says Koenraad Wiedhaup, co-founder and chief executive officer of Leyden Labs.
“At Leyden Labs, we’re working to stop infections early by delivering antibody-based formulations directly to the nasal mucosa – eliminating the threat of respiratory viruses directly at the very gate through which they enter. The timing of this fundraising is critical – in light of recent avian flu (H5N1) developments, we feel even more urgency to execute our mission to protect people against existing and new viruses,” adds Wiedhaup.
Acquired CoV Biotechnology
Besides funding, Leyden Labs also announced the acquisition of CoV Biotechnology Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based biotech company with assets developed by Linfa Wang, a professor of emerging infectious diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School.
This acquisition adds to Leyden Labs’ research and development efforts including pandemic preparedness and other partnership initiatives in Asia.
Leyden Labs: Helping people protect against viruses
Founded by Jaap Goudsmit, Koenraad Wiedhaup, and Ronald Brus, Leyden Labs utilises its platform to target commonalities of viral families to protect against many viruses simultaneously as opposed to vaccines that typically protect against a specific virus variant.
The company’s platform is built on two concepts: broad protection against known viruses, new variants, and newly emerging viruses, and protection at the gate, i.e. in the mucosa (e.g. in the nose and throat).
According to the company, its intranasal product candidates (e.g. nasal sprays) will be self-administrable, providing people with the freedom to protect themselves instantaneously from infection and prevent transmission.
The investor
ClavystBio is a life sciences investor and venture builder set up by Temasek to accelerate the commercialisation of breakthrough ideas into health impact.
“We are pleased to partner with Leyden Labs to advance the mission of protecting the world from the burden of known and new respiratory viruses,” says Khoo Shih, chief executive officer of ClavystBio, who joins the Supervisory Board of Leyden Labs.
“This demonstrates our strong commitment to working with world-class scientists and passionate leaders at Leyden Labs to accelerate the development of its novel technology and pipeline to make a global health impact,” adds Shih.
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