The company’s proprietary CRISPR-Cas tech platform is used to selectively and precisely eradicate target bacterial, but still leave the patient’s microbial community alone.
SNIPR Biome, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, announced it had closed a Series A financing worth $50 million. The financing was led by existing investor Lundbeckfonden Emerge in Copenhagen and LSP in Amsterdam, along with North-East Family Office (Copenhagen) and Wellington Partners in Munich.
SNIPR manages to merge two currently hot biotech approaches—CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing with the microbiome. The company’s proprietary CRISPR-Cas tech platform is used to selectively and precisely eradicate target bacterial, but still leave the patient’s microbial community alone.
The microbiome is the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live in the body. Increasingly, the nature of the microbiome is found to play a significant role in a variety of diseases and health conditions. And not just in infections, but in cellular signaling and communication.
The monies raised will be used to finance the continued development of its CRISPR tech platform and its first clinical programs.
“We have the potential to develop valuable therapeutics within multiple important disease areas,” stated Christian Grondahl, co-founder and chief executive officer of SNIPR. “We will focus initially on precision medicines for difficult-to-treat infections and precision microbiome modulation in auto-immunity and cancer.”
Grondahl goes on to say, “We are utilizing the bacteria’s CRISPR/Cas immune system to selectively kill target bacteria based on specific DNA fingerprints. We are thrilled to have obtained this massive and transformational funding and backing from absolute leading European VCs and investors in Lundbeckfonden Emerge, Life Science Partners, North-East Family Office, and Wellington Partners.”
The company describes its tech platform as “next-generation antibiotics harboring DNA-based CRISPR-Guided Vectors (CGV Technology) that cause double-stranded breaks in bacterial genomes and ultra-rapid killing in a matter of minutes, allowing rapid response in acute settings.” The tech takes advantage of bacterial endogenous Cas nuclease activity, using the bacteria’s own machinery to attack itself—a sort of bacterial suicide machine.
The company has spent the last 18 months gathering preclinical proof-of-concept data. The tech, if effective in people, clearly has potential applications for antibiotic-resistant infections. But with new findings in the microbiome, the company believes it has potential applications in immuno-oncology and in autoimmune diseases.
The company currently has 18 staffers and plans to hire more now that the $50 million funds are available. The company hopes to test their tech in humans in about two years. The runway for the funding is expected to be about three to three-and-a-half years.
Lundbeckfonden Emerge is a unit of the Lundbeck Foundation focused on early-stage investment. The Lundbeck Foundation is one of the largest industrial foundations in Denmark with a market value of about $10 billion (US).
“SNIPR Biome is based on cutting edge gene editing CRISPR science, which offers an opportunity to develop new effective and selective treatments towards a host of human diseases,” stated Christian Elling, managing partner of Lundbeckfonden Emerge and chairman of SNIPR Biome. “Based on our original Exploratory Investment, the company has successfully matured its drug development technology and the current Series A investment reflects this fact. We warmly welcome the new investors in the company and look forward to our continued collaboration with the team helping them grow the company to address important unmet needs of patients.”
