The Sabadell Asabys and AdBio funds have invested 5.5 million euros in Orikine Bio, a biotech founded last year as a spin-off from the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.
Sylvain Sachot, a partner at Asabys, explains that Orikine is the result of years of research by the founding scientists, Luis Serrano, director of the CRG, Ariadna Montero and Javier Delgado. This team investigates cytokines, proteins that direct and modulate the immune system, and they have found a technology that is capable of correcting them when they do not work correctly, which is what causes inflammatory diseases (arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis or colitis), autoimmune, allergies and also some types of cancer.
Alejo Chorny, co-founder and executive director of the company, explained that there have been various attempts to develop drugs through cytokines, but they had significant side effects. “Our technology avoids them,” he points out.
This round is the first raised by the company, although Adbio has helped financially in the design of this initial phase and in the constitution of the company. “With the capital that we are now raising, we plan to validate our technological platform,” says Chorny, and also identify the first products and indications that will lead to a preclinical phase. To start clinical trials, Chorny acknowledges, the company will require additional funding. “This first phase will take us about two years,” says Chorny. The company, which has the research team in the CRG laboratories, employs eight people.
Chorny is also the representative in Spain of AdBio, a French firm specializing in the creation of companies in life sciences. “This is our third investment in Spain,” she points out. The firm already participates in Integra Therapeutics and Arthex Biotech.
Asabys, for its part, invests in the company with two of its funds: Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments II, and Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments 2B. In this case, moreover, the investment has the support of the European Union through the InvestEU Fund. The manager, explains Sachot, has close to 217 million euros in assets under management and 14 investee companies, while it has already disinvested in another.
Orikine, for its part, is the fifth spin-off launched by the CRG in a few months. According to its director, Luis Serrano, this has been possible “thanks to the development of state-of-the-art computational and experimental tools combined with decades of experience in biochemistry.”
