Biotechnology company Cyclana Bio has raised £5 million ($6.7 million) to advance its drug discovery for endometriosis. 

The pre-seed funding round was co-led by NfX and Eka VC, with investors including Cocoa VC, Wilbe, and Angel investors. Cyclana Bio aims to use the investment to develop both functional disease models and its platform investigating tissue level therapeutics, starting with the discovery of treatments for endometriosis. 

Endometriosis is a chronic and debilitating lifelong condition that affects 1 in 10 women worldwide. Despite its prevalence, the disease physiology of endometriosis remains poorly understood and treatment options remain limited. Cyclana Bio hopes to address the urgent need to better serve millions of women by developing physiologically relevant models, utilising AI-driven multi-scale data integration to discover druggable targets which improve treatment outcomes. 

“Our mission at Cyclana is not just to close the gender health gap but propel women to the forefront of drug discovery,” said Dr Léa Wenger, CEO and Co-Founder of Cyclana Bio. “We are redefining how therapies are developed, starting with the basic science, by zooming out and studying disease at the level where it truly emerges: the tissue itself.”  

“By raising venture capital as our first source of financing, we are building a model with the consumer, the patient, at the centre. We now have not only the privilege but also the responsibility to generate the best pipeline to bring new treatments to the clinic.” 

Cyclana Bio aiming to address unmet needs in women’s health

Cyclana Bio has previously demonstrated the role of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in endometriosis, where dysregulation of the ECM causes inflammation and loss of tissue function. Drug development strategies to treat endometriosis have so far focused on intracellular mechanisms, failing to target the interaction between cells and the ECM, and have resulted in sub-optimal treatment efficacy.  

The biotechnology company is focused on building whole tissue models of disease, harnessing menstrual fluid received from donations from an observational clinical trial. It hopes to use lab-based modelling to uncover early biomarkers of disease, identifying novel targets for drug development. 

“Our goal is not just to develop new treatments, but to change the framework of biomedical discovery itself,” added Professor Kevin Chalut, CSO and Co-Founder at Cyclana Bio. “By starting with women’s health, we’re addressing one of the greatest unmet needs in medicine. In doing so, we will not only cure a debilitating disease many women suffer from, we will also set the stage for a broader transformation in how we understand and treat chronic disease.” 

 

Bruno Quinney, Content Team, DDW