Eternygen has held first closing of its Series A2 funding round led by new anchor investor Evotec SE and additional funding from venture capital firms Epidarex Capital, IBB Ventures and a number of family offices. The new investment amounting to EUR5 million will be used to drive Eternygen’s development of novel treatments for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) to the next milestone, ie the selection of a preclinical development candidate, the initiation of IND enabling studies as well as growing clinical capabilities within the team.
NASH is a life-threatening metabolic disease which urgently needs new effective treatment options and represents a large and rapidly growing market opportunity. Eternygen will use the proceeds of this financing to continue its preclinical program tackling NASH with a unique and previously unexplored mode of action by focusing on citrate metabolism, a key regulator for multiple processes driving NASH pathogenesis. Eternygen targets NaCT/SLC13A5 (also referred to as “INDY” or “I’m not dead yet) – a sodium coupled citrate transporter in the liver – which has a broad effect on NASH-relevant pathways like glucose metabolism, lipogenesis as well as inflammation, fibrosis and cardiovascular risk factors. The current funding round of about EUR5 million will remain open for additional investment to bring the program to clinical POC.
“NASH is expected to become one of the largest economic and public health burdens in developed countries over the next 10 years. Effective treatments are urgently needed to address this serious disease which can ultimately lead to liver cirrhosis,” says Marco Janezic, Founder and CEO Eternygen, GmbH. “The ongoing support by our investors and the promising data generated to date give us great optimism to continue our work for patients and caregivers. In particular the commitment of Evotec as our main development partner, knowing the program in depth and now being the lead investor is a great validation of our recent work and gives us confidence for the next development stages of our unique approach.”
“At Evotec we are committed to developing disease modifying treatments for metabolic diseases,” says Dr Cord Dohrmann, CSO Evotec. “Eternygen’s approach to NASH fits very well as it is focused on the inhibition of INDY, a target with accumulating evidence that is plays an important metabolic role in the development of NASH and related metabolic disorders. Although INDY is not easily tractable via small molecules Eternygen has managed to identify a number of chemical leads which clearly have the potential to be turned into drugs. We are very much encouraged by Eternygen’s progress and believe that they will deliver sorely needed drugs to NASH patients who are lacking effective treatment options.”
