SciRhom Secures EUR 63 Mil­lion Series A Fin­an­cing Round to Accel­er­ate iRhom2-tar­get­ing Ther­apies in Autoim­mune Diseases

SciRhom GmbH, a bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­al com­pany pion­eer­ing the devel­op­ment of first-in-class thera­peut­ic iRhom2 anti­bod­ies, announced today the clos­ing of a EUR 63 mil­lion (USD 70 mil­lion) Series A fin­an­cing round. The round was co-led by Andera Part­ners, Kur­ma Part­ners, Hadean Ven­tures, MIG Cap­it­al, and Wel­ling­ton Part­ners, with par­ti­cip­a­tion from new investor Bay­ern Kapit­al and exist­ing investors includ­ing High-Tech Gründer­fonds (HTGF) and Phi­Fund Ven­tures from New York, USA. The new funds will be used to accel­er­ate and broaden the impact of the company’s innov­at­ive thera­peut­ic strategy in autoim­mune dis­orders. The first clin­ic­al study eval­u­at­ing SR-878, a highly spe­cif­ic mono­clonal anti­body for iRhom2, is expec­ted to start dos­ing in the second half of 2024.

SciRhom was foun­ded with the mis­sion to provide a new treat­ment paradigm for autoim­mune dis­eases and poten­tially oth­er indic­a­tions by select­ively address­ing TACE/ADAM17, a mas­ter switch for vari­ous autoim­mune dis­ease-rel­ev­ant sig­nal­ing path­ways, via iRhom2. The SciRhom team col­lab­or­ated closely with co-founders Prof. Carl Blo­bel and Hos­pit­al for Spe­cial Sur­gery (HSS), the world’s lead­ing aca­dem­ic med­ic­al cen­ter spe­cial­ized in Rheum­at­o­logy and mus­cu­lo­skelet­al health, where Prof. Blo­bel serves as Dir­ect­or of the Arth­rit­is and Tis­sue Degen­er­a­tion Pro­gram. He has made sem­in­al con­tri­bu­tions to the under­stand­ing of how iRhom2 con­trols the activ­ity of TACE/ADAM17 in inflam­ma­tion and autoim­mune dis­eases. SciRhom designed its most advanced devel­op­ment can­did­ate SR-878 to sim­ul­tan­eously block sev­er­al pro-inflam­mat­ory and dis­ease-driv­ing path­ways, includ­ing TNF-alpha, IL-6R, and EGFR sig­nal­ing, while pre­serving oth­er vital func­tions depend­ent on TACE/ADAM17.

This unique abil­ity to attack mul­tiple cytokines and to poten­tially pro­mote immune tol­er­ance through restor­ing bene­fi­cial TNFR2 sig­nal­ing, and reg­u­lat­ory T‑cell expan­sion prom­ises to have a trans­form­at­ive effect in patients across a wide range of autoim­mune dis­eases. Moreover, the select­ive tar­get­ing of iRhom2 is expec­ted to have a favor­able safety profile.

„Since its found­a­tion, SciRhom has applied rig­or­ous sci­ence to estab­lish a lead­ing pos­i­tion in iRhom2-tar­get­ing bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­als includ­ing a com­pre­hens­ive IND/CTA-enabling data and CMC pack­age and strong pat­ent pro­tec­tion. Now is the time to shift gears and accel­er­ate our nov­el and poten­tially ground­break­ing thera­peut­ic strategy toward clin­ic­al proof-of-concept and bey­ond to reach patients in need of bet­ter autoim­mune treat­ments,” com­men­ted co-founder Dr. Jens Ruhe, Man­aging Dir­ect­or & COO of SciRhom.

Based on pos­it­ive pre­clin­ic­al data sets gen­er­ated in vitro and in estab­lished anim­al mod­els of rheum­at­oid arth­rit­is (RA) and inflam­mat­ory bowel dis­ease (IBD), SciRhom has advanced its first pro­gram to a Phase 1‑ready stage. As announced on June 12^th, 2024, the first CTA approv­al was achieved pav­ing the way for ini­ti­at­ing a first clin­ic­al study in Aus­tria in the second half of 2024. The study aims to eval­u­ate safety in healthy volun­teers and provide ini­tial evid­ence of clin­ic­al activ­ity in the second part of the study.

Dr. Jan Poth, Man­aging Dir­ect­or & CEO of SciRhom added: ​“We are excited to haveat­trac­ted such a high-caliber inter­na­tion­al con­sor­ti­um of investors and appre­ci­ate ourex­ist­ing share­hold­ers back­ing SciRhom in this cru­cial peri­od of its devel­op­ment. We look­for­ward to col­lab­or­at­ing with our new as well as exist­ing part­ners and board mem­bers tobring a dif­fer­en­ti­ated thera­peut­ic option to patients and address the unmet med­ic­al need­for much more effect­ive and safe treat­ments for autoim­mune disorders.”

“We are delighted to have sup­por­ted SciRhom from its incep­tion all the way to CTA approv­al and are now look­ing for­ward to work­ing with the new investors to take SciRhom‘s lead anti­body into the clin­ic,” com­men­ted Hans-Ulrich Rabe, cur­rent Chair­man of the Advis­ory Board and one of the four found­ing investors who jointly invest in biotech start-ups via their invest­ment plat­form Ven­tura Ace.

In con­junc­tion with this invest­ment, Dr. Olivi­er Litzka from Andera Part­ners, Dr. Peter Neubeck from Kur­ma Part­ners, Dr. Geor­gina Aske­land from Hadean Ven­tures, Dr. Fei Tian from MIG Cap­it­al and Dr. Var­un Gupta from Wel­ling­ton Part­ners will join SciRhom’s Board of Directors.

They togeth­er stated ​“iRhom2 is a key driver of inflam­ma­tion and SR-878 offers a first-in-class oppor­tun­ity for multi-path­way inhib­i­tion as well as pro­mot­ing immune and tis­sue homeo­stas­is. This approach has a trans­form­at­ive poten­tial for patients with autoim­mune dis­eases that are cur­rently dif­fi­cult to treat with exist­ing drugs. SciRhom is led by a highly exper­i­enced and ded­ic­ated team of people who we strongly believe will be able to drive SR-878 to clin­ic­al
val­id­a­tion.”

The team of SNP Sch­lawien Part­ner­schaft led by Dr. Thomas Schmid acted as leg­al advisor to SciRhom in the transaction.

About iRhom2

TACE (TNF-alpha con­vert­ing enzyme, also known as ADAM17) con­trols sev­er­al major sig­nal­ing path­ways, includ­ing TNF-alpha, IL-6R, and EGFR sig­nal­ing. TACE is there­fore widely accep­ted as a poten­tial tar­get to block pro-inflam­mat­ory path­ways, but dir­ect inhib­i­tion of TACE causes severe side effects. The more recent dis­cov­ery that iRhom2 (inact­ive Rhomboid 2, RHBDF2) sim­ul­tan­eously and very spe­cific­ally reg­u­lates the TACE-depend­ent release of TNF-alpha and oth­er pro-inflam­mat­ory molecules from immune cells provides the excit­ing oppor­tun­ity to tar­get the dis­ease-driv­ing activ­it­ies of TACE while pre­serving its oth­er vital func­tions. Giv­en the pivotal role of iRhom2, numer­ous new research stud­ies have recently high­lighted the thera­peut­ic poten­tial of tar­get­ing iRhom2 to treat immun­o­lo­gic­al and inflam­mat­ory dis­eases and bey­ond, includ­ing onco­lo­gic­al, infec­tious, and meta­bol­ic diseases.

About SciRhom GmbH

At SciRhom, we are trans­lat­ing world-lead­ing expert­ise in the TACE/ADAM17 path­way and its cent­ral role in autoim­munity and oth­er indic­a­tions into break­through bio­phar­ma­ceut­ic­als. We are devel­op­ing pro­pri­et­ary and first-in-class iRhom2-tar­get­ing ther­apies and are accel­er­at­ing our lead anti­body pro­gram SR-878 into and through clin­ic­al devel­op­ment. With strong sup­port from inter­na­tion­al lead investors Andera Part­ners, Kur­ma Part­ners, Hadean Ven­tures, MIG Cap­it­al, Wel­ling­ton Part­ners, as well as Bay­ern Kapit­al and cur­rent share­hold­ers, SciRhom aims to push the bound­ar­ies in autoim­mune medicine.