Tar­get­ing tox­ic pro­tein ag­gre­ga­tion, Ger­man biotech banks €12M to de­vel­op drug for rare neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­der

The ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mis­fold­ed pro­teins is con­sid­ered the hall­mark of var­i­ous neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases. Now, a Ger­man biotech is go­ing af­ter tox­ic pro­tein ag­gre­ga­tion in pa­tients with mul­ti­ple sys­tem at­ro­phy (MSA), a rare, pro­gres­sive dis­or­der caused by shrink­ing nerve cells in the brain.

The com­pa­ny, MODAG, was found­ed in 2013 and based on re­search con­duct­ed by sci­en­tists at Lud­wig Max­i­m­il­ian Uni­ver­si­ty of Mu­nich and the Max-Planck-In­sti­tute for Bio­phys­i­cal Chem­istry. On Thurs­day the biotech un­veiled a €12 mil­lion (about $13.64 mil­lion) round of fi­nanc­ing — led by Mas­sa In­vest­ment AG — which will help shep­herd its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug, an­le138b, in­to hu­man tri­als.

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