Maxion Therapeutics (”Maxion”), a biotechnology company developing antibody-based KnotBody® drugs for ion channel- and G protein coupled receptor (GPCR)-driven diseases, announced today that it has raised £58 million in a Series A financing. The financing reaffirms the potential of Maxion’s proprietary KnotBody technology and development pipeline and its opportunity to address large global markets.
This oversubscribed Series A funding round was led by General Catalyst with additional investment from new investors, British Patient Capital, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, Solasta Ventures and Eli Lilly and Company and supported by existing investors LifeArc Ventures, Monograph Capital and BGF.
Maxion is developing a proprietary pipeline of KnotBody molecules with “first-in-class" and “best-in-class" potential. Maxion’s lead KnotBody programme, MAX001, is currently in preclinical development to target a broad spectrum of inflammatory diseases such as atopic dermatitis and inflammatory bowel disease. Other early-stage programmes include KnotBody molecules for the treatment of pain and cardiovascular disease.
Ion channel and GPCR dysfunction is implicated in a wide range of debilitating diseases and current treatments, based on small molecule drugs, often suffer from poor efficacy and side effects due to the lack of selectivity and exposure. Compared to small molecules, engineered antibodies offer superior selectivity and are well proven therapeutically. Despite these obvious advantages, antibody discovery against ion channels and GPCRs has been very challenging with no antibodies against ion channels currently in clinical development.
Co-founders Dr. John McCafferty and Dr. Aneesh Karatt-Vellatt developed Maxion’s revolutionary KnotBody technology, which combines the benefits of knottins (cysteine-rich mini-proteins which are natural ion channel modulators) with antibodies, creating safe, efficacious and long-acting ion channel modulators.
