Austrian biotechnology firm F-star has raised 15 million euros in a financing led by SR One, the corporate venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline.
All of the Vienna-headquartered group’s existing investors, including Atlas Venture and the VC operations of Novo Nordisk and Merck Serono also participated in the round. Since its founding in 2006, the company has raised 34 million euros.
F-star uses its ‘modular antibody technology’ platform to generate biotherapeutics. Deborah Harland, SR One Partner and new board member, said “we believe the platform has the potential to generate numerous novel differentiated biologics with advanced efficacy, tissue penetration and targeting capabilities compared to traditional antibodies”.
Kevin FitzGerald, F-star’s chief executive, said that with this financing “we are now ideally placed to progress the first product candidates generated from our unique platform through investigational new drug- enabling studies and thereafter into the clinic”.
Last November, F-star linked up with Boehringer Ingelheim in a deal covering seven targets in mutipe therapeutic areas that could be worth over 1.2 billion euros.
