Roche’s venture arm is joining the likes of Sofinnova Partners and AbbVie in backing Italy’s Enthera Pharmaceuticals, bringing the diabetes-focused biotech’s series A round to €35 million ($42 million).
“These funds raised will enable us to accelerate our lead program Ent001 to clinical proof-of-concept. Through this and our wider pipeline, we hope to develop safe, effective treatments to patients affected by intractable diseases such as type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease,” said Enthero CEO Giovanni Amabile, Ph.D., in a statement.
Enthera is developing Ent001 for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. The drug inhibits the IGFBP3/TMEM219 pathway, which plays a role in apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in the gut, pancreas and other tissues. It works by blocking cell death in these tissues and restoring the structure and function of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas or intestine.
In addition to advancing Ent001 into the clinic, the funding will also bankroll the development of earlier-stage projects.
The news comes six months after the first close of Enthera’s series A in summer 2020. At the time, the company raised €28 million ($34 million) from Sofinnova Partners, AbbVie, the JDRF T1D Fund and several Italian investors. Enthera had previously raised €4 million in seed funding in 2018, two years after spinning out of BiovelocITA, an Italian biotech accelerator.
Enthera is among several biotechs looking to replace the daily injections and chronic care that define treatment of people with Type 1 diabetes. Sigilon and Eli Lilly are developing encapsulated cell treatments that restore a patient’s ability to produce insulin, while Vertex Pharmaceuticals is working on stem-cell based treatments for the disease through its $950 million buyout of Semma Therapeutics.