The Canadian venture capital fund CTI Life Sciences Fund III, Inveready and the EIC Fund from the European Commission close a round with the additional participation of CDTI Innvierte, FiTalent, family offices as well as founders.
BARCELONA, Spain, MONTREAL and LUXEMBOURG, March 11, 2024 — The Catalan biopharmaceutical company Ability Pharmaceuticals, SA (AbilityPharma), focused on the development of innovative oral autophagy-inducing anticancer compounds, announces a €7M investment from a European-Canadian syndicate of life sciences investors, including CTI Life Sciences Fund, Inveready, the EIC Fund, Fitalent and CDTI Innvierte. The funding will allow the Company to fully finance its phase 2b clinical study of antitumor compound ABTL0812 in patients with pancreatic cancer.
AbilityPharma is completing a Phase 2b clinical trial with ABTL0812 in metastatic pancreatic cancer (all 140 patients recruited) with the aim of demonstrating greater efficacy than standard treatment FOLFIRINOX. The double-blind, placebo-controlled, first-line study in combination with FOLFIRINOX is ongoing in 23 hospitals in Spain, USA, France, and Israel. Efficacy results are expected by year-end.
Significant superior efficacy results will allow AbilityPharma to obtain financing for final development of ABTL0812 or to license it to a multinational pharmaceutical or biotechnology company, with the goal of making ABTL0812 available to pancreatic cancer patients in 2028.
“We are very pleased to complete this financing round and welcome CTI Life Sciences Fund’s Shermaine Tilley to our board of directors, which will enable us to accelerate the development of ABTL0812 in the short term”, stated Carles Domènech, PhD, Executive Chairman and CEO at AbilityPharma. “We are thankful to CTI Life Sciences, Inveready and the EIC Fund for completing this financing round, and to all our new and existing investors for their confidence in our team and for their support to our goals. This investment will allow us to continue working tirelessly on taking ABTL0812 to patients with pancreatic cancer”.
Shermaine Tilley, PhD, MBA, Managing Partner at CTI Life Sciences Fund, said “We are delighted to provide financing for late-stage development of Ability Pharma’s innovative and highly promising treatment for pancreatic cancer. I am pleased to assume a position on their board of directors and will work with management and the board to optimize the value of ABTL0812 for patients and for investors”.
Sara Secall, MSc, MBA, General Partner Inveready, said “We are excited to bring in savvy investors that can help move forward AbilityPharma’s treatment for cancer patients”.
Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board, said: “The EIC Fund has become a strong player in EU deep-tech investments. The unique financing approach through the EIC, combining grants and equity, is attracting significant interest from Europe’s most promising start-ups and provides them with the means to develop and scale their businesses in Europe. Our investment will help Ability Pharma with the development of their product for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.”
SOURCE AbilityPharma
