ATB Therapeutics raises €54m in Series A financing

Belgian plantmade probody specialist ATB Therapeutics BV raised €54m in a Series A financing set to boost developmeng of oncology and immunology drug candidates from its patented ATBioFarm platform. This technology allows for one step production of biologics in tobacco plants, which consist of a targeting antibody, a cleavable but stable peptidic linker and a cell-killing enzymatic payload  by just transfering the encoding DNA sequence into a tobacco-compatible vector that is expressed within the plant cells. According to the company, the ADC-like fusion proteins circmumvent common problems of bacterial and mammalian expression systems that occur in the process of attaching toxic payloads in a defined stochiometry to the targetting antibody Additionally, in contrast to typically payloads, ATbodies use enzymatic cell-killing mechanisms that are complementary to the mode of action of chemotherapeutics.

The financing was co-led by EQT LifeSciences and MRL Ventures Fund (MRLV), alongside with participating V-Bio Ventus, VIVES Partners, the Belgian sovereign fund SFPIM, Wallonie Entreprendre, Sambrinvest, and the company’a seed investors. The  capital increase will allow ATB to expand and enhance its state-of-the-art ATBioFarm platform, which will be offered for contract manufacturing as well as for accelerating the  development pipeline of its proprietary hetero-bifunctional antibodies in oncology and immunology. ATB’s research and development operations will be extended to Ghent and will continue in Novalis Science Park where the ATB Therapeutics is currently setting up a cutting-edge pilot manufacturing facility.

In conjunction with this funding, ATB has appointment bispecific antibody veteran Mark Throsby as
Executive Chairman,  former lyChief Scientific Officer of Merus. Biotech investors Karin
Kleinhans, Partner at MRLV, and John de Koning, Partner at EQT, will join the company’s Board of Directors.