Funding boost will take Lead Program Inhibitor forward

Pre-clinical biotech BiPER Therapeutics, (Strasbourg) a developer of first-in-class drug candidates targeting BiP protein to treat gastrointestinal cancers has raised a total of €1.25 million ($1.35M) in seed funding. The company received €300k ($322k) in dilutive funds from WiSeed via WiClub Santé 2, €500k ($544k) in convertible bonds from Bpifrance and €450k ($483k) in grants as part of the i-Lab innovation award and from the Grand Est region.

The seed round will fund BiPER’s work, for 15 months, on the preclinical development of its lead program BPR001, a first-in-class BiP inhibitor, for the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers and bring it to the Clinical Trial Application (CTA)/Investigational New Drug (IND) stages, with gastric cancer as the primary indication. It will also enable the company to advance its R&D programs in first-in-class Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress inducers.

The French company is approaching cancer treatment through development of a molecule targeting BiP, a key protein involved in cancer cell survival. The therapeutic interest in this target has been validated by several in vivo and in vitro proof of concept studies. BPR001 has already demonstrated efficacy in vivo as a single agent and in combination with chemotherapies and immunotherapies. To eliminate tumours, it pushes the cancer cells to ‘burn out’ by selectively inducing strong and unsolvable stress in tumours.

“Stephane Rocchi, Rachid Benhida, Cyril Ronco and myself have developed a drug candidate that has enormous potential as a new therapeutic solution for those patients resistant to standard treatments, who represent around 50% of gastrointestinal cancer patients,” said Mehdi Chelbi, co-founder and CEO of BiPER Therapeutics. “I would also like to thank our great team and Zaki Sellam, managing partner at Landmark Bioventure, for their valuable support in the success of this seed round. This funding will bolster our efforts to advance the preclinical development of BPR001 to the CTA/IND stages. In parallel, we have started a Series A funding round to help finance the early clinical phases.”

Alongside the funding, BiPER welcomes Guillaume Vetter-Genoud, director of Quest for health, to the board. “With our partners Wiseed, we’re proud to be able to support a promising start-up like BiPER Therapeutics. The identification of new therapeutic agents with an original mode of action is fundamental to circumventing the resistance phenomena in standard-of-care treatment,” said Guillaume.

Legal advisor was Morgan Rapinat at Rapinat Advocat.

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