Participated · Series A · Nov 2012

Lanthio Pharma applies proprietary lanthionine-peptide technology to discover and develop constrained lanthipeptide drugs with longer half-life and high receptor selectivity. Its lead program, LP2, is a peptide designed to selectively activate the Angiotensin type 2 (AT2) receptor to protect tissue from inflammation and fibrosis. LP2 is being developed for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) with the potential to extend to renal, heart and liver fibrosis once safety and efficacy are established. The company uses a proprietary bacterial display library capability to construct and screen lanthipeptide libraries against GPCR targets. MorphoSys AG has obtained rights to commercialize Lanthio’s technology. Lanthio is funded by Inkef Capital, BioGeneration Ventures, MorphoSys and RUG Holding. The company announced a government-backed Innovation Credit loan to support development through Phase II proof-of-concept trials. Lanthio Pharma is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing a new class of therapeutic peptides (lantipeptides) with high target selectivity and improved "drug-like" properties. Its core technology is the LanthioPepTM drug discovery platform, which can be used to identify lantipeptides. The company has signed a Technology Alliance with MorphoSys to jointly develop LanthioPepTM, with MorphoSys receiving preferred rights to exclusively license the technology for drug discovery and services. Lanthio Pharma out-licensed its lantipeptide PanCyte to Tarix Pharmaceuticals; PanCyte is expected to start clinical testing in 2013. Financially, Lanthio completed a first close of a Series A round, raising €4.8M, and the round remains open for an additional investor. The company launched in 2011 as a spin-off of the University of Groningen and is led by CEO Bart Wuurman (based in Groningen, The Netherlands).