EG 427 raised an additional €5 million in the final closing from a combination of existing investors and new family office investors, bringing the total raised to €18 million.
Philippe Chambon, founder and CEO of EG 427, said: “We are delighted to conclude this Series A round with strong support from our existing investors, as we also welcome new investors.”
“The funds raised will be used to advance our pipeline, culminating in the Investigational New Drug application filing in Q1 2024 for the first clinical study of our lead product, EG110A.
“Thanks to our unique ability to deliver gene therapies to targeted tissues with pinpoint accuracy, EG110A could become the first gene therapy product to treat neurogenic bladder overactivity and other bladder pathologies. It also could become the first gene therapy targeting a chronic disease with high morbidity in a large, underserved patient population to reach the market.”
EG110A
Neurogenic bladder dysfunction is a chronic and dangerous condition suffered by people living with spinal cord injuries or other neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease.
Existing drugs act by paralyzing the bladder muscle, in more or less selective ways, and can lead to urinary retention, also associated with infections.
By contrast, based on highly targeted gene therapy delivery afforded by the nrHSV-1 vectors, EG110A selectively silences only the type-C sensory neurons in the bladder by delivering botulinum toxin F light chain (BoNT/F LC).
This approach has been shown to preserve bladder muscle function in preclinical testing. Thanks to the local administration of nrHSV-1 vector into bladder muscle and the vector’s natural tropism from there to sensory neurons, EG110A achieves specificity for targeted neurons, without spreading systemically like other smaller viral vectors used in gene therapy, such as adeno-associated virus (AAV).
Compared to available treatments, EG110A may also provide long-term efficacy, reducing or even potentially obviating the need for repeated injections.
The treatment has shown proof-of-concept efficacy in multiple relevant preclinical models including for bladder dysfunction. Separately, its mechanism of action, the silencing of sensory neurons, has been clinically validated by a surgical procedure known as a sacral dorsal root rhizotomy. The surgical technique severs dorsal nerve roots in the spinal cord and is not selective for bladder sensory neurons the way EG110A is.
Later this year, EG 427 will be initiating a Series B fundraising to finance clinical development of EG110A and advance other pipeline products.
Cornelia Haag-Molkenteller, chief medical officer at EG 427, said: “EG110A is the first genuinely innovative approach to be developed for patients suffering neurogenic bladder overactivity in more than a decade. Compared to other experimental therapeutics at this stage of development, it is de-risked by two key precedents."
“First, the way EG110A exerts efficacy is similar – but with potential critical improvements in safety and efficacy – to a surgical option for this condition, called sacral dorsal root rhizotomy; and, second, the recent FDA approval of the first non-replicative HSV-1 vector gene therapy confirmed that this approach has strong therapeutic potential outside of cancer.”