Affimed Therapeutics AG successfully completes series C financing round to support development of two cancer products
Affimed Therapeutics AG, the Heidelberg based recombinant antibody discovery and development company, announced today the successful completion of a € 3.2 M round of private financing. This follow-on financing to the second round closed in 2003 will support the development of two proprietary recombinant antibodies for the treatment of lymphomas and solid tumors into the clinical development phase.
First Ventury Equity GmbH, Heidelberg, led the financing round together with KfW, Bonn and SHS Gesellschaft für Beteiligungsmanagement mbH, Tübingen.
»I am very pleased with the timely completion of our series C financing round«, said CFO Dr. Florian Fischer. »This investment will increase our financial flexibility to develop two of our proprietary products into clinical development. The fact that our main investors from previous financing rounds participated in the series C underscores the continuing commitment to our company.«
George Rehm, Managing Partner of First Ventury and Board Member of Affimed commented: »Based on the very solid performance of Affimed we are pleased to expand our own participation by this round. This investment will further strengthen Affimed's position in the area of next-generation monoclonal antibodies«.
About Affimed Therapeutics AG
Affimed is a product-oriented biotech company very strongly positioned in monoclonal antibodies - the fastest growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry. From its inception, Affimed has pursued a focused strategy of developing human antibody therapeutics. By utilizing its broad portfolio of proprietary, in-house technology platforms together with crucial enabling freedom-to-operate licenses the company has been able to establish an early stage and pre-clinical product pipeline of promising novel product candidates in Oncology, Thrombosis and Immune Suppression. Affimed is now pursuing a twin track of development of certain of its own oncology projects and in parallel that of research collaborations and licensing for other oncology and non-oncology projects.
Affimed was founded in May 2000 by Professor Melvyn Little, as a spin-off of his group »Recombinant Antibodies« at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Additionally, the company was able to acquire project-related grants amounting to €1.1mio. The company has acquired financial support from both VC and government grants. A further €1mio award has been granted the company under the German federal government program BiochancePLUS to develop highly innovative human recombinant antibodies for cancer treatment. Under a recently concluded project-specific licensing partnership with Syngenta Biopharma the two firms will co-develop two of Affimed's proprietary TandAb compounds for cancer indications. The parties will also utilize Affimed's technology platform to identify and develop TandAbs for additional indications.