Abivax SA bags €49.2m to push ABX-464

The round was led by TCGX. Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, Deep Track Capital, Sofinnova Partners, Invus and Truffle Capital participated together with existing investors. The financing consists of a capital increase of €46.2m through the issuance of 5,530,000 new shares with a nominal value of €0.01 per share to a specific group of investors and the issuance of licence certificates in the amount of €2.9m.

Abivax said it will use the proceeds to push Phase III development of its ulcerative colitis drug candidate obefazimod (ABX-464) and to pay operative costs. The oral miRNA-124 upregulator inhibits the production of inflammatory mediators by immune cells by attenuating the production of IL-6 and TNF-alpha-converting enzyme (TACE) through targeting of the STAT3 mRNA cap, even in other autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. ABX-464 has been demonstrated even to be effective in patients that do not respond to biologics such as infliximab. This offers a huge market opportunity.

An induction study resulted in a clinical remission rate of 65.3% in 217 ulcerative colitis patients after eight weeks of treatment. Data from the maintenance study so far show a best-case remission rate of 55.3% after 48 weeks of once-daily administration of 50mg obefazimod.