BARCELONA, Spain – February 15th, 2018 — ABAC Therapeutics (ABAC), a leader in pathogen-specific antibiotics, announced today the closing of a €16 million Series A round. The financing was led by Pontifax with participation from the Global Health Science Fund (jointly established by Quark Venture Inc. and GF Securities), Caixa Capital Risc, Debiopharm Innovation Fund and the existing investor Ferrer.

ABAC is utilizing its proprietary discovery platform PasNas to identify novel pathogen-specific antibiotics designed to selectively kill multi-drug resistant bacteria. This approach allows the pursuit of novel modes of action while minimizing the impact on normal flora and the selection of resistant strains. The technology was originally developed by founders Albert Palomer and Domingo Gargallo-Viola.

ABAC’s lead program targets multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii, an increasingly fatal pathogen recently nominated by the World Health Organization as the most urgent bacterial threat for which new drugs are needed. The company intends to use the series A funds to advance its Acinetobacter program into the clinic and expand its pipeline of proprietary pathogen-specific antibiotics.

“As antibiotic resistance continues to grow, new therapeutic approaches are desperately needed”, said Albert Palomer, CEO of ABAC. “Pathogen-specific antibiotics represent a novel approach for anti-infective drug development and have the potential to give rise to a completely new generation of antibiotics. We are excited to be one of the leaders in this field and are looking forward to working with the different stakeholders in order to unleash its disruptive potential”.

“The time to incorporate precision medicine to the treatment of infectious diseases has arrived. The search for new target product profiles, together with the PasNas discovery platform, leads us to a new paradigm to treat infections, based on precision antibacterial agents”, said Domingo Gargallo-Viola, CSO of ABAC.

Concurrent with the financing, ABAC also announced that Silvia Noiman (Pontifax), Zafrira Avnur (Quark Venture Inc. representing the Global Health Science Fund), Carlos Esteban (Caixa Capital Risc), Bea Arnold (Debiopharm Innovation Fund) and Olga Fidalgo (Ferrer) will join the board of directors alongside the founders of the company Albert Palomer and Domingo Gargallo-Viola.

About the Series A Investors

The syndicate in ABAC’s Series A financing is a well-balanced mix of experienced life science investment funds and strategic pharma partners.

• Pontifax is an Israel-based healthcare fund focused on investing in life science companies with exceptional science and entrepreneurs.
• Global Health Science Fund, established by Quark Venture and GF Securities in 2016, invests globally in a diversified portfolio of innovative biotechnology and health science companies who are addressing unmet medical needs.
• Caixa Capital Risc is the Barcelona-based venture arm of “la Caixa” investing in breakthrough biopharma technologies and products across multiple disease areas.
• Ferrer is one of Spain’s largest private health sector companies with a proven commitment to driving research by investing in life science business opportunities.
• Debiopharm Innovation Fund, the strategic fund of Lausanne-based Debiopharm Group, invests in innovative technologies in healthcare and has outstanding expertise in the area of infectious diseases.

For further information, please visit www.abactherapeutics.com or contact Berbés Asociados:

María Valerio / María González: +34 91 563 23 00

mariavalerio@berbes.com /mariagonzalez@berbes.com 

In the recent decades, the uncontrolled use of wide-spectrum antibiotics to treat infections and their massive usage in livestock food has significantly contributed to the rise of strains resistant to conventional drugs, which were per se the only effective way to deal with them.

Due to these events, the concerns regarding bacteria related illnesses have dramatically risen, up to the point where even the WHO itself urged for the development of new antibiotics able to deal with the most problematic pathogens. This call has rapidly been answered by numerous pharmaceutical companies, which are now on the race of finding new treatments, more effective and personalized than the traditional ones.

ABAC Therapeutics is one of these companies, focused on the discovery and development of first-in-class, novel mechanism, pathogen-specific antibacterial drugs to treat multi-drug resistant infections.

In fact, many mass-media from different fields have echoed this necessity of new antibiotics and have remarked the vital contribution ABAC Therapeutics is making in this particular field. Some examples are:

– Diario Médico (01/11/2015): ABAC busca llevar la medicina personalizada al terreno antibacteriano  (Spanish version. Only available under registration). English Version.

– Diario Expansión (09/12/2015): ABAC Therapeutics busca 3,5 millones para crear nuevos antibióticos (Spanish version). English version.

– The Parliament Magazine (08/02/2016): ABAC therapeutics. Precision antimicrobial agents            (Direct access to: Page 33)

 

 

Original source: Diario Expansión. Gabriel Trinidade. Barcelona. 09/12/2015

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The Ferrer group spin-off focuses his activity in the developing of specific antibiotics. They are working in a molecule to treat bacteria with high mortality rate.

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Founded in the year 2015, ABAC Therapeutics is one of the most recent spinoffs from Ferrer Internacional. Mainly focused on the development of specific antibacterial medicines, they just entered on the final phases of their first drug against one of the most concerning pathogens in terms of antibiotics resistances: A. Baumanii. Using the momentum created by such announcement, ABAC Therapeutics is now looking for investors, opening a financial round of 3,5 million euros.

The Company is based in Esplugues de Llobregat (Barcelona) and is leaded by their CEOs Dr. Domingo Gargallo-Viola and Dr. Albert Palomer. Both of them are also shareholders, owning 20% of the company, while Ferrer owns the remaining 80%.

 “In this financial round we want to take into account not only business angels, but we are also considering strategic partners and collaborators” says Dr.Gargallo-Viola. As a matter of fact, during the first weeks of February both CEOs were in India, where the project has generated many expectations amongst different potential investors. Currently undergoing, the financial round is set to close during the first trimester of 2016.

Aware of the big potential the idea behind ABAC Therapeutics had, Ferrer decided to place the project as a standalone spinoff, trusting the entrepreneurship of both Dr. Gargallo and Dr. Palomer and entitling them both as CEOs of the new company. As a separate entity, Abac Therapeutics could become more appealing to potential investors and obtain more capital.

ABAC is currently researching new antibiotics to treat serious diseases with no treatments. There is still a long way to go, as no significant advances have been reported during recent years. However, the rise of resistant bacteria is pressuring laboratories to find new alternatives.

“Till today, we are using broad spectrum antibacterials, i.e. effective against several pathogens” says Dr. Gargallo-Viola. This strategy has two main pitfalls: (i) eliminates the entire intestinal flora and (ii) contributes to the apparition of resistance against common treatments.

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“In the future, antibacterial market will be the same as oncology treatments, offering personalized medicine focused on specific pathogens”

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Nowadays, there are only a few companies in the world specialized in this area of research. However, in the last years big pharma have turned their focus onto this particular field. For example, Roche has made arrangements with two different startups: the Swiss Polyphor and the British Discuva.

ABAC therapeutics uses the PasNas platform. “It means one system to allow us to search the best compound to treat bacteria”, pointed Dr.Gargallo-Viola.

The company is near to announce the first preclinical candidate, the Ab 877. It is a molecule that affects Acinetobacter baumanii, one of the most problematic pathogen to deal with from the medical perspective. “is one of the bacteria with the highest mortality rate, reaching the 50% in the multiresistant strains”, says.

The compound has already attracted the interest of several international pharmaceutical groups.

Original source: Diario Médico. Cristina G. Real. Madrid. 11/01/2016

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The spanish Company is developing specific antibacterials against pathogens. Their “Pas Nas” Platform allow them to reach their first pre-clinical candidate for A. baumanii

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It has been more than 50 years since the discovery of the last first-in-class antibiotic -omitting two exceptions with a rather limited application -, while the rise of multiresistant bacteria strains has become an inherent problem in the treatment of infective diseases, especially in the clinical field. Concerns regarding such problem are on the rise as the WHO claimed that the fight against those organisms to be of the utmost importance and one of the main challenges for the 21th century healthcare; such infections are the cause of 700 to 800.000 deaths per year worldwide. Paradoxically, the pharmaceutical industry seems to have given up on such a quest and there are almost no new antibiotics on development right now. Up to certain extent, this situation arises from the complexity of optimizing or finding new wide-spectrum compounds, the usual development strategy until now and one of the sources of resistance that generates the actual therapeutic problem.

New mechanisms

One possible approach is to treat infection diseases following similar strategies as the ones used to treat cancer: “personalized medicine or high-accuracy treatments”. In other words, the development of “specific antibacterians targeting the pathogens with new mechanisms of action exclusively attacking the bacteria causing the infection with a minimum impact on the internal flora of the infected patient”. Domingo Gargallo, co-founder and scientific responsible for ABAC Therapeutics, explain to DM that the young company emerging from Ferrer in 2013 is focused precisely on the strategy starting from their platform PasNas (Pathogen Specific Narrow Spectrum), which is used to identify unique properties of specific pathogens in antibacterials.

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“Regulatory agencies are recognizing a shift in the paradigm of new antibiotics and are applying the fast track regulatory procedure for their evaluation”

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This tool, developed by ABAC founders, uses different algorithms to test compound libraries against every bacterial strain and uses predictive features of preclinical models to maximize the likelihood of success for the hits found in the screening phase. The “PasNAs” platform has been already validated and reduces by 25 the number of assay molecules and the time needed in the preclinical stage. Important results had been already reported: after screening 30000 compounds, PasNas found one potential antibacterial with specificity against Acinetobacter baumanii, one of the four “killers” “entre” gram-negative bacteria. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli are the other members of family and all of them are taken into account during the PasNas screening.

The first pre-clinical candidate of the company, Ab877, is on it’s way of being patented and has already started the first clinical phases. “The objective is to reach phase I with the different compounds we found – A proof of concept in antibacterial field because of huge predictive value of animal models – and at this point license them or sell them to other companies able to finish their development and put them on the market. We are in negotiations with some of the top-ten pharma companies” says Gargallo.

First-in-class

ABAC is focused on the development of first-in-class potential compounds with new mechanisms of action, with intravenous administration and indicated to infections with high mortality rates. In that way, it maximizes the potential turn-over of the investment as the compounds are meant to treat severe infections, being used exclusively in hospitals. Those antibiotics will potentially save money to the administration as it will reduce the number of days a patient has to stay on the hospital and it will save its life. “Their price won’t be as cheaper as actual antibacterials because from a social-economical point of view they will make a change in the paradigm of infection treatments” says, and “the regulatory agencies know that and they are doing their best to encourage the development of new antibacterials. As a matter of fact, they are already applying the regulatory accelerated process (fast-track) in their evaluation”.

Dr. Gargallo lastly exposed ‘At the current stage of the ABAC project, we are on the verge of closing two partnerships with two important Indian companies – chemical and biological related respectively – that will own part of the intellectual property of ABAC in India in exchange of an investment that will be summed to those already provided by Ferrer and both ABAC CEOs”

The pharma company is compromised initially in a financial project for 4 years to progress Ab877 to phase I, the optimization of other second compound to preclinical candidate stage and the selection of other leads.

A business model with pharmaceutical support

ABAC Therapeutics is a spin-off of Ferrer Internacional S.A.. It’s business strategy is actually focused on other fields, thus they trusted the economical and logistic support of Abac to Dr. Domingo Gargallo and Dr. Albert Palomer, ABAC founders. Actually, Ferrer possess the 80% of ABAC and the founders the 20% equally shared. The business model is based in a personal management, in which the investigators are part of the project and, from the beginning, introduced an international group of collaborators specialized in different fields, as chemistry or biology. In the first invest round due to be in the next months, ABAC hopes to reach 3,5 million of euros with specialized capital risk foundations and other 6,7 million in 2017.

The emergence of multi‐drug resistant infections and the loss of infrastructure for antibiotic discovery over the past two decades, meaning there are few new agents reaching market, poses unprecedented challenges to human health.

By 2050 it is estimated that 10 million people annually will die from a multi‐drug resistant infection at a global cost of $100 trillion1. That is 10 million individuals for whom there will be no hope of treatment or cure. Millions more will find commonplace surgeries, cancer therapies and treatment for chronic conditions such as cystic fibrosis threatened unless new, effective antibiotics are discovered, developed and made available.

Prevention of infections through improved hygiene and preservation of the existing arsenal of antibiotics through education on use and prescribing and stewardship programs are an integral and essential part of the solution. However there is a critical need to rebuild the infrastructure and international capacity for antibiotic discovery and development which has virtually disappeared over the past two decades due to company mergers, lack of investment in the field and the consequent and systematic loss of experts within industry and academia.

World experts are gathering on 10th June 2015 at the Wellcome Trust London to launch Antibiotic Discovery Global, a powerful coalition of world experts that are joining forces to tackle the dual crisis of antimicrobial resistance and the near empty antibiotic development pipeline. This first global network of experts in antibiotic discovery and development from industry and academia will be launched by Anthony Coates, Founder, Antibiotic Research UK with a guest keynote address by Jim O’Neill, Chair and Review on Antimicrobial Resistance.

Antibiotic Discovery Global will provide an international knowledge base and infrastructure to support global antibiotic discovery and development, including the rejuvenation of older antibiotics for new uses. The network will support the need for the establishment of a Global Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Innovation Fund, as proposed by the O’Neill Review on AMR, and will promote the need for global PhD and Fellowship programs in antibiotic discovery.

Jim O’Neill, Chair, Review into Antimicrobial Resistance welcomed the coalition saying “we need to invest more in the people who will solve the challenges raised by drug‐resistant infections. Antibiotic Discovery Global will provide amuch needed forum for experts from academia and industry to meet, innovate and begin to rebuild a robustantibiotic discovery and development platform. This initiative can start turning the tide and play an important role toattract the new generation of researchers in academia and public and commercial labs”.

Sir Anthony Coates, Founder, Antibiotic Discovery UK, St George’s, University of London, said “We hope Antibiotic Discovery Global will provide the much needed catalyst through which the antibiotic discovery market can be regenerated. Experts from across the globe will be able to share their expertise and energies and help us to encourage new, up and coming researchers into the antibiotic discovery field.” He continued “It is essential that we rebuild the academic and industrial infrastructure if we are to tackle what is undoubtedly the greatest crisis facing human health.”

Professor Laura Piddock, Director of Antibiotic Action, welcome the launch saying “Antibiotic Action has long campaigned for the discovery, development and bringing to market of new antibiotics for all who need them, now and in the future. The problems we face are global, and global initiatives such as this are essential if we are to solve the dual crisis of antibiotic resistance and the empty antibiotic pipeline.”

Spain has actively participated in the formation of the Antibiotic Discovery Global (AD-Global), through the recently created Red Nacional para el Descrubrimiento de Nuevos Antibióticos (AD-ES). This organization was constituted last November with the aim of pushing the Spanish research in the antibiotics field to higher levels in the international community.

Domingo Gargallo-Viola, scientific director of Abac Therapeutics and spokesman of AD-ES in the AD-Global initiative explained: “Spain has a key role in both the know-how and in the research of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at a global scale; for this reason is of the utmost importance to join efforts in this field and spread our initiatives”

The AD-ES network has significantly contributed to the establishment of the BEAM alliance (http://beam-alliance.eu/), an European collaborative effort to fight against antibiotics resistances. At the same time, similar national networks as the one forged in Spain had appeared in the EEUU and in Australasia. The members of those agencies are actively collaborating with experts of other countries and together they formed the AD-global association.

ABAC Therapeutics is now a member of the newly launched the Alliance of Biotechs of Europe innovating in Anti-Microbial Resistance, called the BEAM Alliance. This group of European biotechnology companies is committed to tackling the unique challenges facing the industry in the antibacterial field and currently regroups 34 companies from 10 European countries.

The BEAM will work to improve the regulatory, investment, and commercial environment for research, development, and approval of new products combating antimicrobial resistance, as well as their market viability. The Alliance intends to provide a collective voice to biotech companies involved in developing innovative products to tackle antimicrobial resistance. By proposing and supporting policies and regulatory solutions to member-identified problems, we aim to reinforce the attractiveness of this therapeutic area, support the development of new products and accelerate the market access of such new products for European patients.

For more information, please visit: http://beam-alliance.eu/

  

 

 

The Spanish Network for The Discovery of New Antibiotics (AD-SP) has been formally constituted in Barcelona by a group of 23 public and private entities including companies, hospitals and universities. The initiative is supported by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI). The CDTI is a public corporation under the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, which promotes innovation and technological development of Spanish companies in the national and international levels. The purpose of the AD-SP is to promote the collaboration between its members, coordinate the relations with the Administration and assume a representative role in national and international forums.

The meeting has been coordinated by Domingo Gargallo-Viola, and promoted by ABAC Therapeutics, a spin-out company from Grupo Ferrer. ABAC Therapeutics is dedicated to the discovery and development of first-in-class, novel mechanism, pathogen-specific antimicrobial agents to treat multi-drug resistant infections. The initiative was presented by Domingo Gargallo-Viola, CSO of ABAC Therapeutics; Youness Ouahid, director of Discovery and Development at Valoralia R & D; Jordi Vila, Director of Microbiology at the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona; Francisco J. López Hernández, Biomedical Research Institute of Salamanca (IBSAL). University of Salamanca; Rafael Canton, Director of Microbiology at the Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Madrid; Olga Genilloud, Scientific Director of Fundación MEDINA and Juan Luis Romera, Head of the Health Area of Promotion and Coordination Division, CDTI, Madrid.

During the presentation, the experts described the causes of multidrug resistance and insisted on the risks of the antibiotics abuse both in humans and in animals as well as the globalization of multi-resistant pathogens through intercontinental trade and travel. Placing special emphasis on the need for coordination to discover and develop new antibiotics.

The act ended with the nomination of members that initially, will be part of the managing committee. In the managing committee are represented: industry, hospitals, academia and public administration. The nominated members are:

  – Domingo Gargallo-Viola
    – Youness Ouahid
    – Albert Palomer
    – Jerónimo Pachon
    – Jordi Vila
    – Juan Luis Romera (CDTI)
    – Lluís Ribas
    – Olga Genilloud
    – Rafael Cantón

MEETING AGENDA