Cellvie raises an additional 5.5 million US dollars

Cellvie has closed an additional financing round in the amount of 5.5 million US dollars. According to a press release, this was led by Taiho Ventures LLC from Silicon Valley in the USA. Existing investors were also involved in this latest financing round, including the Karlsruhe-based Kizoo Technology Capital, which led a preceding seed funding round.

The biotech company is a spin-off from the Harvard Medical School, having been founded in 2020 in Matzingen in the canton of Thurgau and subsequently moving to the Technopark Zurich in 2022. Cellvie works with an approach that was originally developed at Harvard: Transplanting viable mitochondria for therapeutic purposes.

With this fresh capital injection, cellvie intends to accelerate and expand the scientific development of its mitochondria platform, in addition to putting in place the organizational foundations in preparation for a Series A financing round by the end of 2023. “We have recognized the tremendous potential in the therapeutic use of mitochondria, particularly in the fight against cancer”, comments Sakae Asanuma, President and CEO at Taiho, in the press release. He remains convinced that “cellvie is very well positioned to become a leader in this emerging field”.

The aim of a mitochondrial transplantation is to revive the energy metabolism in the cells, for example in the event of an insufficient supply of oxygen, such that may occur in the event of a heart attack, stroke or during organ transplantation. “Given the insights gained and treatment successes shown by my scientific co-founders, we have always viewed mitochondria as a potential new category of medicines”, explains Dr. Alexander Schüller, co-founder and CEO of Cellvie, in the press release. In order to exploit this potential, cellvie has concentrated on the development of an allogeneic standard product and new application areas in gene therapy and senile dementia over the past couple of years. mm