Topas raises €22m in Series B financining

Topas Therapeutics GmbH has closed a €22m (~$26mn) Series B financing round co-led by Vesalius BioCapital III and BioMedPartners with participation of Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, EMBL Ventures, Epidarex Capital, Evotec, and Gimv. Upon the financing, Marc Lohrmann, Vesalius Biocapital III, and Michael Wacker, Ph.D., BioMedPartners joined the Board.

The company said it will progress clinical development of its lead programme TPM203  for the treatment of the orphan autoimmune disease pemphigus vulgaris, a rare autoimmune disease that causes painful blistering on the skin and mucous membranes. Furthermore, Topas will advance the company’s  TPM501 programme towards clinical development for the treatment of celiac disease. The company has further programmes in preclinical development to treat autoimmune diseases, allergies and anti-drug antibodies such as ADA.

Topas develops functionalised nanoparticles that induce antigen-specific immune tolerance through TGF-beta signalling of the liver’s endothelial sinusoidal cells  (LESCs). Antigen-induced regulatory responses are thought to act more specifically on the immune system than the current non-selective blocking of the complete immune response.

The nanoparticle-based platform was developed by Professor Johannes Herkel and Jörg Heeren from the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) who initially focused on the treatment of multiple sclerosis within the research project NANOdeLIVER and advanced it within the NEU² consortium together with the biotech company Bionamics GmbH. Topas Therapeutics emerged from the neuro portfolio of Bionamics GmbH, which was acquired by Evotec back in 2014.