As numerous trends are currently shaping what is an eventful year for the biotech industry, we have compiled a list of the top European biotech companies that have received sizable seed funding in the past year and are directing those funds towards research and development (R&D) programs in a range of therapeutic areas.
One such trend in the industry is the increase in artificial intelligence-enable drug discovery startups. The global artificial intelligence in drug discovery market size was estimated to be $1.5 billion in 2023, and is expected to expand by nearly 30% annually from 2024 to 2030, according to a report by Grand View Research.
Here’s a list of 10 European biotech companies likely to make a big splash in the biotech sector.
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Quotient Therapeutics
Born out of the venture capital company Flagship Pioneering, Quotient Therapeutics made its $50 million launch late last year. The newly formed genomics sequencing company, which is located in England, has come up with a genetic library platform that will aid in drug discovery.
Quotient’s somatic genomics platform is designed to find the links between genes and diseases in order to develop medicines that can imitate or inhibit drug targets – the proteins that code for the disease-related genes.
Last month, the biotech formed an alliance with pharma giant Pfizer to identify new drug targets to address heart and kidney diseases. The partnership will see the two collaborators analyze somatic mutations present in the tissues of people with diseases so as to treat them.
Bioptimus
There’s a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) startup in town. Founded in 2024, French startup Bioptimus is employing its AI-model to aid drug discovery. Recently, it unveiled its H-optimus-0, which Bioptimus claims is an “open-source AI foundation model for pathology”. The model is trained on a dataset of several hundreds of millions of images extracted from over 500,000 histopathology slides across 4,000 clinical practices.
The European startup emerged from stealth with $35 million and is the brainchild of former scientists from AI biotech company Owkin and Google DeepMind.
Relation Therapeutics
British biotech Relation Therapeutics has been around for more than four years now and has found a way to integrate AI and drug development. Two years ago, it teamed up with NVIDIA and gained access to CAMBRIDGE-1, the UK’s most advanced supercomputer, to strengthen digital biology research. Moreover, NVIDIA’s venture arm co-led Relation’s $35 million seed funding round this March.
Relation’s pipeline is mainly focused on treating osteoporosis, a condition characterized by a decrease in bone strength, making them fragile and more likely to break. Osteoporosis affects 45 million patients across the U.S., Europe, and Japan. It affects one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50. As it is an inherited disease with over 2000 gene loci that have been identified, the company uses its proprietary technology Osteomics, the world’s largest single-cell bone atlas, to uncover new therapeutic targets and biomarkers to treat patients.
Like many AI-based drug discovery companies, it is working on its Lab-in-the-Loop approach to aid drug discovery and development. This approach integrates tissue profiling, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, sequencing and target validation.
ExpressionEdits
Headquartered in Cambridge in England, ExpressionEdits has created its Genetic Syntax Engine, a computational platform that is said to “perfect genetic grammar.” What this means is that with the help of AI, it can redesign transgenes to unlock protein expression across different therapeutic fields.
This protein expression is enhanced by a process called intronization. It uses introns, which are non-coding sections of an RNA transcript – previously thought to be junk DNA – that are now recognized as pivotal regulators of gene expression. An average intron is more than 1500 base pairs long, but ExpressionEdits’ introns are around 80 base pairs in size, making them easier to work with and integrate into constructs without having to deal with size constraints.
Earlier this year, ExpressionEdits bagged $13 million in a seed funding round co-led by Octopus Ventures and redalpine, with participation from BlueYard Capital, Wilbe Capital, Acequia Capital, Amino Collective, and Hawktail. The money will drive candidate selection for preclinical studies and the development of a pipeline of recombinant protein-based medicines.
Draupnir Bio
Protein degradation is the natural process by which proteins are destroyed in a cell to maintain the right balance of proteins in the body. Protein degradation drugs are a new class of drugs that uses the body’s protein disposal mechanisms to eliminate harmful proteins that cause diseases. Danish biotech Draupnir Bio is one such biotech involved in the development of protein degradation drugs.
Draupnir’s technology platform targets lysosome receptors. Lysosomes are present in cells and they typically aid in programmed cell death when the cell is damaged beyond repair. Sortilin is one among many lysosome receptors. Draupnir’s most advanced program targets proteins with the help of Sortilin. The drugs, which are called sortilin-based lysosome-targeting chimeras (SORTACs), bind to the receptor, and contain a linker and a small molecule, which binds to the disease protein. The sortilin and the SORTAC are then recycled, resulting in further rounds of protein degradation.
Currently, the European biotech company is building a preclinical pipeline of oral, small-molecule protein degraders against targets that have been traditionally difficult to drug. In July, Draupnir raised a €12 million ($13.36 million) seed round to press ahead with pipeline development.
Infinitopes
U.K.-based Infinitopes spun out of Oxford University in 2021, and has since been dedicated to developing cancer vaccines. Currently, in the preclinical stage, its pipeline has been devised based on its discovery platform, which uses machine learning workflows. The platform has been validated in preclinical models and has shown superior tumor protection compared to known antigens. The vaccines are designed to induce T cell immunity.
The European biotech company has been backed by Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Horizons, and Innovate UK, among others. This year, it collaborated with American life science company Bruker to identify cancer antigens. It also secured £12.8 million ($17.05 million) in seed funding, which will finance a phase 1/2a study for a first-line therapy in patients with cancer.
Adcytherix
Launched three months ago, French startup Adcytherix is focused on antibody drug conjugates (ADC) against cancer. ADCs are made up of a monoclonal antibody, which is linked to a drug – usually a chemotherapy drug. ADCs are a targeted approach to cancer care as they kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
As part of its launch, it snagged €30 million ($33.40 million) in seed funding. The round was led by Pontifax and supported by Pureos Bioventures, RA Capital Management, and Dawn Biopharma.
Commit Biologics
The complement system is a collection of proteins that work in tandem to help the immune system fight pathogens and disease-causing cells. When the complement system is activated, particularly in the case of pathogen defense, it interacts with antibodies that coat the cell surface and initiates multiple functions that lead to cell killing. But monoclonal antibodies tend to not engage with the complement system effectively enough, limiting the activation of the pathway. That’s where Commit Biologics comes in.
Commit’s Bispecific Complement Engaging technology (BiCE) is designed to activate the complement system to induce the killing of tumor cells and autoimmune disease-causing cells. Antibodies derived from BICE bind to the complement protein C1q to initiate cell killing.
When the Danish startup took off earlier this year, it did so with €16 million ($17.81 million) in seed financing. It also obtained a DKK 5 million ($750,000) grant from the Innovation Fund Denmark.
Artica Therapeutics
Situated in The Netherlands, Artica Therapeutics specializes in the development of covalent drugs. This class of drugs is usually designed to block protein function by forming a specific bond between the ligand and target protein, thereby preventing the proteins from causing disease. Although much is yet to be disclosed about its pipeline, Artica aims to address autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.
Late last year, the European biotech company closed a €12 million ($13.36 million) seed round co-led by Thuja Capital and Seroba, along with participation InnovationQuarter and founding investor BGV.
Cumulus Oncology
It is thought that 50% of phase 3 clinical trials without a biomarker fail, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Scottish biotech Cumulus Oncology is determined to change this statistic.
By identifying and prioritizing assets and programs that hold the highest potential for clinical success, it spins out young biotechs to strengthen R&D. So far, there are three biotechs: Nodus Oncology, GIO Therapeutics, and NuanBio, that have come out of it.
All three companies have pipelines in the discovery and early preclinical stages. Nodus is focused on precision medicines, particularly cancer drugs that target the DNA damage repair system. GIO – which spun out last month – is creating G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR)-targeted pharmaceuticals, whereas NuanBio is developing antibodies and ADCs, for treating cancer.
The Edinburgh-based biotech received £9 million ($11.99 million) in a seed funding round. Previously, it has collaborated with Swiss biotech leadXpro to develop drugs that target GPCRs, and in April, it formed a partnership with the School of Pharmacy at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) to boost cancer drug discovery.
Europe to spend more on R&D
While the market size of biotech in Europe is about half that of the U.S., it is still a major global sector. The European market holds $246 billion potential, according to a report by Boston Consulting Group. The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen also recently pledged to put innovation “at the center of Europe’s economy” and therefore, increase research spending to further drive this growth.
This article was originally published in January 2022 by Clara Rodríguez Fernández and has since been updated by Roohi Mariam Peter in September 2024.
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