Sofinno­va leads $32.4 mil­lion round for Italy's Ery­Del; Cel­gene ex­pands col­lab­o­ra­tion with Zymeworks

→ Hav­ing fol­lowed Mi­lan-based Ery­Del and its CEO for years, Sofinno­va Part­ners is jump­ing in for the ride, lead­ing its lat­est €26.5 mil­lion ($32.4 mil­lion) round. The funds will cov­er the reg­is­tra­tional Phase III clin­i­cal tri­al of Ery­Del’s lead prod­uct, Ery­Dex, which us­es the biotech’s red-blood-cell-based drug de­liv­ery tech­nol­o­gy to treat atax­ia telang­iec­ta­sia. The tri­al, dubbed AT­TeST, is cur­rent­ly en­rolling in Eu­rope, Asia, Aus­tralia and the US. Sofinno­va is joined by ex­ist­ing share­hold­er Genex­tra SpA and Inno­gest SGR, all chip­ping in to push the com­pa­ny along in its in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment. “We are thrilled to wel­come Sofinno­va Part­ners as our lead in­vestor,” CEO Lu­ca Be­nat­ti said in a state­ment. “Their unique in­ter­na­tion­al reach and rec­og­nized ex­pe­ri­ence for build­ing glob­al lead­ers rep­re­sent a huge as­set at a time when Ery­Del is about to ac­cel­er­ate its growth plan.”

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