Tridek-One SAS, a French biotech startup specialized in the research and development of CD31 agonists to restore immune balance, has closed a €16 million ($16.1 million) new financing round.
The financing was led by Swiss Pureos Bioventures with the participation of new investors Bpifrance and Bioqube Ventures, as well as historical investors AdBio partners and Advent Life Sciences.
The funds will primarily be used to identify development candidates against auto-immune diseases, to conduct IND-enabling studies and to further build the organization. The company previously raised €3 million ($3 million) in a first round in 2019 involving AdBio partners and Advent Life Sciences.
Founded in 2018 by Giuseppina Caligiuri and Antonino Nicoletti, researchers at INSERM Unit 1148 in Paris, France, with the support of historical investor AdBio partners, Tridek-One is developing a novel CD31 agonist approach to modulate immune activation for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Tridek-One’s board additions
Following the fundraising, Klaus Breiner of Pureos Bioventures, and Benoit Barteau of Bpifrance, are joining the company’s board of directors. Erik van den Berg, CEO of AM-Pharma, joins as independent chairman of the board of directors.
“It is a pleasure to join as chairman whilst the company is building a great team, with a professional syndicate of international investors committing to decades of research by the team of Dr. Giuseppina Caligiuri and Pr Antonino Nicoletti,” said Erik van den Berg, the chairman of the board at Tridek-One.
“There is still an important, unsatisfied medical need in many auto-immune diseases. Agonizing immune inhibitory receptors like CD31 has the potential to rebalance the immune system without being more broadly immunosuppressive. We are excited to further translate this concept with Tridek-One through its discovery and preclinical stages,” added Klaus Breiner, managing partner at Pureos Bioventures.
“To be accompanied by investors who believe in our project is a fantastic opportunity. This will enable us to accelerate our work to identify and develop first-in-class immune checkpoint agonists capable of controlling serious inflammatory diseases,” the founders of Tridek-One said.