– UK, London – Engitix Ltd, a biopharmaceutical company with a pioneering and proprietary human extracellular matrix drug target discovery platform today announced the closing of a $54m Series A financing co-led by existing investor Netherton Investments.
Concurrent with the financing, Mike Platt, co-founder and Managing Director of BlueCrest Capital Management, and Gianluca Rossetti, Corporate Business Development Director at Dompé, have joined the board of directors.
Marcello Allegretti, CSO of Dompé said, “Our mission is to improve people’s lives and we partner with the best academic and industrial groups to accelerate the research that will bring new solutions to patients’ unmet needs. We look forward to working with the Engitix team to combine the power of Exscalate with Engitix’s deep understanding of the biology of the fibrosis and solid tumors microenvironment and the unique strength of its ECM platform. Our collaboration will enable us to accelerate the clinical translation of targets beyond our four key in-house therapeutic areas of ophthalmology, metabolic disorders, oncology, and pain management.”
The financing will be used to invest in Engitix’s internal drug discovery pipeline through IND-enabling studies, expand its ECM discovery platform and bioinformatics capabilities into new therapeutic areas, and expand its team, facilities, and operations.
Dr. Giuseppe Mazza co-founder and CEO of Engitix said, “This financing and new partnership with Dompé enables us to continue our evolution from a platform to multi-asset multi-programmes pre-clinical stage company and to continue to prove the value of our human ECM platform. We are pleased to have the continued backing of Mike Platt and to have secured the support of Dompé as a partner and investor. This round will enable us to advance our pre-clinical programs against targets identified using our ECM platform through candidate selection and IND-enabling studies.”
Mike Platt said, “I am prepared to take a risk and invest in innovative technology early, backing highly passionate teams with strong leadership. Having invested from the start, Engitix’s progress and achievements within less than two years from its seed financing have been impressive. The value of Engitix’s platform has been proven through the partnerships it has established and the pipeline of opportunities it has built. The collaboration with Dompé propels it to the next stage and I look forward to working with the board and investors to maximize Engitix’s full potential.”
About Engitix Ltd
Engitix is developing a portfolio of internal & partnered drug discovery programs in fibrosis and solid tumors using its pioneering human extracellular matrix platform. The use of more physiologically relevant human in vitro models is transforming the ability to identify new targets, develop more advanced treatments, and enable a more accurate prediction of the efficacy of therapeutic candidates. It has partnerships with Dompé farmaceutici and Takeda, and a previous partnership with Morphic Therapeutics.
Engitix was founded in 2016 to commercialize cutting-edge research at the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, Division of Medicine, University College London. The company is headquartered in Westworks, White City Place, London, UK.
A private company, Engitix investors include Netherton Investments, a fund investing on behalf of Mike Platt, and Dompé farmaceutici, an Italian and US-based biopharmaceutical company.
For more information: https://engitix.com/
About Mike Platt
Mike Platt is the co-founder and CEO of BlueCrest Capital Management, which he started in late 2000 after nearly a decade at JP Morgan. Mike built BlueCrest into one of the world’s largest hedge fund firms; at its peak, it managed more than $35 billion in assets. In 2015 he returned outside investors’ money, remaking BlueCrest into a family office. The firm has flourished since then, generating a 95% net return in 2020 after returns in the 50% range in 2016, 2017, and 2019. His net worth is $13 billion.
About Dompé farmaceutici S.P.A
Dompé is a privately owned biopharmaceutical company with 130 years of history and expertise in life sciences. Headquartered in Milan, the company also has operations in Boston, San Francisco, and Shanghai. It conducts research activities as part of a network of over 300 centers and universities across the world. Dompé uses a variety of next-generation proprietary chemo- and bioinformatic tools, including the Exscalate platform, one of the most powerful and cost-efficient intelligent supercomputing drug discovery platforms in the world.
For more information: https://www.dompe.com/
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