Tubulis: €10.7 million Series A financing from prominent investors

Munich, Germany — Tubu­lis today announ­ced the closing of a €10.7 million Series A finan­cing round. This is inten­ded to drive the deve­lo­p­ment of a new class of highly stable and potent Anti­body Drug Conju­ga­tes (ADCs, “anti­­body-drug conju­ga­tes”) and to support the further growth of the company. Tubu­lis closes €10.7M Series A finan­cing was led jointly by BioMed­Part­ners and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) with addi­tio­nal parti­ci­pa­tion from Seven­ture Part­ners, copa­rion, Bayern Kapi­tal and OCCIDENT as well as high net worth indi­vi­du­als and the founders.

Tubu­lis is a spin-off company that emer­ged in 2019 from the Leib­niz Rese­arch Insti­tute Berlin (FMP) and Ludwig Maxi­mi­lian Univer­sity (LMU) Munich to realize the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of ADCs for the treat­ment of cancer and other diseases.

“Tubu­lis’ goal is to use our dual plat­form to deve­lop ADCs that are perfectly matched to the dise­ase in ques­tion. Funding from such an expe­ri­en­ced consor­tium is further vali­da­tion of our tech­no­logy and reflects the current renais­sance that the field of ADCs is expe­ri­en­cing. The capi­tal gained will enable us to further advance the plat­forms and deve­lop our first two selec­ted ADC candi­da­tes towards the clinic,” said Domi­nik Schu­ma­cher, CEO and co-foun­­der of Tubu­lis (photo: right, next to co-foun­­der Dr. Jonas Helma-Smets).

“Tubu­lis is directly addres­sing the current limi­ta­ti­ons in ADCs and actively shaping the future of ADC thera­peu­tics for the treat­ment of a variety of diffe­rent dise­a­ses. We look forward to support­ing the Tubu­lis team as they build their busi­ness in this rapidly growing area that is in dire need of inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons,” Michael Wacker, Part­ner at BioMedPartners

Tubu­lis’ unique and versa­tile ADC port­fo­lio consists of two proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies. These are based on scien­ti­fic results from the rese­arch groups of Prof. Chris­tian Hacken­ber­ger (FMP), Prof. Hein­rich Leon­hardt (LMU) and Dr. Jonas Helma-Smets, who are all co-foun­­ders of the company. Further­more, Jonas Helma-Smets serves as CSO of the company.

Both plat­forms address the comple­xity of modern ADC design in terms of protein format, drug potency, and drug hydro­pho­bicity. P5 conju­ga­tion is a novel tech­no­logy for cysteine-selec­­tive conju­ga­ti­ons. It allows the deve­lo­p­ment of parti­cu­larly stable ADCs with unpre­ce­den­ted linker stabi­lity and chemi­cal flexi­bi­lity. This enables rapid iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of poten­tial deve­lo­p­ment candi­da­tes. The Tub-tag® plat­form is inspi­red by the biology of micro­tu­bu­les. The Tub-tag® modi­fi­ca­tion of the anti­body crea­tes a favorable microen­vi­ron­ment for the coupling of the most chal­len­ging drugs. In addi­tion, the Tub-tag® deri­ved from the human system redu­ces the risk of adverse immune reac­tions. The combi­na­tion of these plat­forms addres­ses the key chal­lenges in the field, ADC stabi­lity as well as drug-deri­­ved toxicity.

Tubu­lis intends to prefe­ren­ti­ally use these tech­no­lo­gies for inter­nal drug iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and deve­lo­p­ment, with the goal of gene­ra­ting novel ADCs that deeply inter­fere with the biology of the respec­tive indication.During the spin-off phase, the company has alre­ady been awarded seve­ral start-up prizes. These include the Venture.Med 2019 “Outstan­ding Start-up Award,” the “Leib­niz Entre­pre­neur­ship Award,” and being named an offi­cial “EIT Health Success Story.” Further­more, Tubu­lis is a company supported by the EIT Health Inves­tor Network.

About Tubu­lis
Tubu­lis uses proprie­tary tech­no­lo­gies to deve­lop novel drugs whose mecha­nisms of action go deep at the root cause of the dise­ase in ques­tion. Our goal is to expand the thera­peu­tic poten­tial of so-called Anti­body Drug Conju­ga­tes (ADCs). We want to usher in a new era in this product class and ther­eby achieve better results for pati­ents. With our proprie­tary deve­lo­p­ment approach to ADCs, Tubu­lis will advance a number of product candi­da­tes that can be used for multi­ple indi­ca­ti­ons. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.tubulis.com or follow us on Linke­dIn and Twit­ter. www.tubulis.com

About BioMed­Part­ners
BioMed­Part­ners is an inde­pen­dent Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm based in Basel. It acts as a lead or co-lead inves­tor, provi­ding private capi­tal to early to mid-stage life science compa­nies. Since 2002, BioMed­Part­ners has inves­ted in seve­ral highly inno­va­tive compa­nies, 22 of which have alre­ady been successfully acqui­red by leading biopharma compa­nies or have comple­ted an IPO. BioMed­Part­ners has more than CHF 350 million in capi­tal available and has estab­lished itself as one of the leading early-stage health­care inves­tors in Europe with a strong team of expe­ri­en­ced indus­try experts and an exten­sive network in science and pharma.

In Febru­ary 2018, the company announ­ced the closing of BioMed­In­vest III, its third equity and corpo­rate capi­tal fund of over CHF 100 million. In this third fund, BioMed­Part­ners focu­ses on support­ing compa­nies with highly inno­va­tive early-stage tech­no­logy plat­forms. One of BioMed­In­vest III’s first invest­ments was the Swiss immuno-onco­­logy company Amal SA (Geneva), which was acqui­red by Böhrin­ger Ingel­heim in June 2019. www.biomedvc.com.

About Seven­ture Partners
With €750m net commit­ments under manage­ment as of the end of 2018, Seven­ture Part­ners is a leading venture capi­tal firm in Europe. Since 1997, Seven­ture Part­ners has been inves­t­ing in inno­va­tive busi­nesses with high growth poten­tial in two fields: Life scien­ces across Europe, Israel, Asia and North America and Digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies in France and Germany. In Life scien­ces, the main areas of focus include “clas­sic” approa­ches such as biotech­no­logy and phar­maceu­ti­cals, diagno­stic and medtech, indus­trial biotech­no­logy, as well as “beyond the pill” approa­ches such as MICRO­­BIOME-linked inno­va­tions, nutri­tion, food­tech, digital/connected health and perso­na­li­zed medi­cine. www.seventure.fr/en

About copa­rion
copa­rion is a venture capi­tal inves­tor for young, German tech­no­logy compa­nies. With a fund volume of 275 million euros, copa­rion is making a signi­fi­cant contri­bu­tion to rapid and sustainable growth. copa­rion supports entre­pre­neu­rial vision with know-how without inter­fe­ring in the opera­tio­nal busi­ness. With many years of expe­ri­ence in venture capi­tal and in buil­ding up compa­nies, the copa­rion team reco­gni­zes poten­tial and opens up new perspec­ti­ves. copa­rion finan­ces exclu­si­vely toge­ther with co-inves­­tors. The focus is on the startup and young growth phase. The fund invests up to 10 million euros per company, usually in seve­ral finan­cing rounds of 1–5 million euros each. copa­rion has offices in Colo­gne and Berlin. www.coparion.vc

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, was foun­ded in 1995 as a wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern on the initia­tive of the Bava­rian state govern­ment. As the venture capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria, Bayern Kapi­tal provi­des equity capi­tal to the foun­ders of inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies and young, inno­va­tive tech­no­logy compa­nies in Bava­ria. Bayern Kapi­tal curr­ently mana­ges thir­teen invest­ment funds with an invest­ment volume of around 500 million euros. To date, Bayern Kapi­tal has inves­ted around 330 million euros of venture capi­tal in around 280 inno­va­tive tech­­no­­logy-orien­­ted compa­nies from a wide range of sectors, inclu­ding life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. www.bayernkapital.de

About OCCIDENT
OCCIDENT is an inter­na­tio­nal venture capi­tal inves­tor with offices in Zug and Munich, is owner-mana­­ged and invests its own assets. The claim is to make a posi­tive contri­bu­tion to society through sustainable and meaningful investments.

OCCIDENT invests in inno­va­tive deep tech start­ups with excel­lent tech­no­lo­gies from the life­sci­en­ces, digi­tal and high-tech sectors with broad appli­ca­ti­ons and the poten­tial for value-gene­ra­­ting further deve­lo­p­ment. The geogra­phi­cal invest­ment focus is Germany and Switz­er­land. Initial finan­cing is prefer­a­bly from seed finan­cing round or later and from 0.5 million euros. OCCIDENT is charac­te­ri­zed in parti­cu­lar by its profound under­stan­ding of tech­no­logy and the versa­tile support of its port­fo­lio compa­nies by a compe­tent team of experts. For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.occident.group.

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial. With a volume of around EUR 900 million spread across three funds and an inter­na­tio­nal part­ner network, HTGF has supported almost 600 start-ups since 2005. His team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups from the fields of digi­tal busi­ness models, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €2.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 1,600 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 100 companies.