Clockwise from left: Vaderis CEO Nicholas Benedict, senior medical director Damien Picard and CSO Pierre Saint-Mezard

Backed by Medicxi, No­var­tis vets launch rare blood dis­or­der biotech with fresh take on drug class used in can­cers

In 2017, two No­var­tis clin­i­cians — Pierre Saint-Mezard and Damien Pi­card — ap­proached Nicholas Bene­dict, who’d left No­var­tis in 2007 and went on to head a se­ries of biotechs, with an idea: use Akt in­hibitors, typ­i­cal­ly used to treat can­cers, for rare dis­eases that cause blood ves­sel mal­for­ma­tions.

The three of them found­ed Vaderis Ther­a­peu­tics in 2019 out of Basel, Switzer­land, with CHF 18 mil­lion (just un­der $19 mil­lion USD) in back­ing from Medicxi Ven­tures, and are launch­ing from stealth to­day as they take their idea, now in drug form, in­to the clin­ic for an 80-pa­tient proof-of-con­cept study.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.