Orbis was founded in 2021 by the Seeds Investment team of Novo Holdings, the assets and wealth manager of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The company is developing treatments based on a class of drug called macrocycles – compounds with a ring-like structure. While macrocycles have yielded blockbuster drugs such as the fungal-derived immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine, it has been difficult for the field to design new macrocycles that rival the binding precision of injectable antibodies in an easy oral format.
What are Macrocycles?
Macrocycles are a class of compounds characterized by their large, ring-like molecular structures. These structures enable them to interact with biological targets, such as proteins, with high precision. Macrocycles have shown promise in drug development, especially as they can penetrate cells and bind to targets that are often considered "undruggable" by traditional small molecules.
Orbis is developing its own types of synthetic macrocycles called nCycles, which are more orally bioavailable and better at targeting proteins inside the cell than other macrocycles. The company can synthesize up to 100,000 types of nCycles over just a few weeks, which is faster than current technology. And by testing these candidates in the lab, the firm screens for molecules with the best target binding capacity, stability and oral delivery potential and feeds the data into a machine learning tool to refine its technology.
Orbis welcomes new investors
Orbis has raised a total of €116 million ($121 million) so far, including its Series A round and a €26 million ($27 million) seed round in February 2024, which was led by Novo Holdings and the venture capital firm Forbion.
The latest round, led by NEA (New Enterprise Associates), saw the return of Novo Holdings and Forbion along with new investors including Eli Lilly and Company and Cormorant. At the same time, Orbis named its CEO as Morten Graugaard, who had served as executive chair of its board of directors for three years.
Graugaard noted in a public release that Orbis “is advancing the potential of macrocycles by developing orally available nCycles — a format preferred by patients, physicians and healthcare systems, particularly for chronic diseases” and that the interest they have received “demonstrates the market appetite for nCycles as an oral approach to both validated biologic targets and targets undruggable by other modalities.”
Increased funding for cyclic peptides
Since Orbis’ seed round, the company has launched a collaboration deal with the US biotech Vivtex to deploy the latter’s screening technology to assess how well Orbis’ drugs can be given to patients orally. Orbis also expanded its footprint to a biotech hub in Copenhagen run by Symbion.
Other startups recently gunning for new cyclic peptides include the US firm Insamo, which raised a $12 million seed round in 2024 and the UK-based Curve Therapeutics, which raked in £40.5 million ($52 million) in a Series A round at the same time.