MaaT Pharma™ raises EUR 1 M (USD 1.25M) in First Investment Round
Financing to develop microbiome therapy for severe intestinal dysbiosis
Paris, France, January 12th, 2015 – Maat Pharma™, a newly formed company in the microbiome space, announces today the closing of its first €1 million of financing supported by Seventure Partners a leading European venture capital fund manager. Seventure Partners could add another tranche of €1 million to this seed round at completion of a significant development milestone of MaaT Pharma™’s lead product in 2015.
MaaT Pharma™ co-develops its lead product with the MICALIS (www.micalis.fr) and MetaGenoPolis (www.mgps.eu) laboratories of INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research, www.inra.fr), worldwide leader in the microbiome science and therapeutic applications. INRA transfer, the tech-transfer office of INRA is also a shareholder in the company.
MaaT Pharma™’s goal is to become the leader in the gut microbiome restoration arena. Its main co-founders are CEO Hervé Affagard, who brings a strong track record of operational leadership in the health sector; Chairman Pierre Belichard, a serial entrepreneur who is in parallel CEO of Enterome (www.enterome.com); Joël Doré, a prominent
INRA scientist who has been trailblazing the microbiome space over the last 30 years, and Pierre Rimbaud, MD recognized expert in the clinical development of microbiome-based therapeutic solutions.
MaaT Pharma™ will use the seed round proceeds to develop a first safe and standardized microbiotherapy solution for hospital use, intended for patients suffering from treatment-induced microbial imbalance (dysbiotic enteropathies). Treating patients in a safe and efficient way with the proprietary MaaT Pharma™ microbiotherapy therapeutic solution will help eliminate gastrointestinal side-effects and will reduce the economic burden of enteropathies and their complications. It will also permit fully efficient and safe use of the existing antibiotics armament.
Pierre Belichard, Chairman of MaaT Pharma™, said:
“Understanding of the human gut microbiome has shown exponential advances in the last few years. The timing is right to build on this fast moving knowledge and provide well-designed therapeutic products to fit patients’ needs.”
Hervé Affagard, CEO of MaaT Pharma™, indicated:
“Together with our partner (INRA) which is at the forefront of this research, Maat Pharma™ will make a difference for millions of patients suffering from severe gut dysbiosis, in the hospital or in the community and whatever its origin – iatrogenic or infectious. MaaT Pharma™’s team is delighted to have Seventure, which knows and understands the Human gut microbiome very well as its financial investor, as well as INRA as its research partner. Both are a natural fit for the company”.
About MaaT Pharma™:
MaaT Pharma™ is a biotechnology company created to treat important diseases, using the power of gut microbial ecology. MaaT stands for Microbiota as a Therapy and focuses on using the clinical promises of microbiotherapy to develop innovative solutions of clinical relevance to treat unmet medical needs of dysbiosis-related diseases.
Our company has been co-founded in 2014, in France, by a well-balanced team made of scientists, entrepreneurs and scientific partners including INRA transfer as well as Seventure as a financial partner. The team’s intention is to embrace a societal project designed to deeply change our contemporary medical field.
About the Human Intestinal Microbiome:
The Human intestinal microbiota is the name given today to the microbial population living in human intestines. It contains 10 times more bacteria than there are human cells in the body and 20 times more genes than there are genes in our genome. It is a complex personal ecosystem, usually stable, tightly adapted to the host and in constant
symbiotic interaction with human cells and organs. There are nevertheless numerous conditions and clinical practices that impose stress to the balanced microbiota.
The microbiota fulfils key physiological functions:
- It helps the body digest food constituents that we are not able to digest.
- It helps with the production of some vitamins (B and K).
- It contributes to the maturation and constant vigilance of the immune system
- It prevents colonization by pathogens, performing a barrier effect.
A balanced gut microbial ecology is essential to the maintenance of health and well-being.
About INRA:
INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) is a mission-oriented public research institute under the supervision of the French Ministries for Research and Agriculture, and carries out research in the fields of agriculture, food and the environment. As one of the leading agricultural research in the world, INRA maintains scientific
partnerships with major scientific research institutes worldwide, universities, agronomy and veterinary schools. The Institute carries out fundamental and applied research in microbiology that aims to understand the functioning of micro-organisms and microbial ecosystems so that they can be better exploited, mastered or controlled. INRA has
taken a leadership role at international level in the field of metagenomics and ecology of the Human microbial ecosystems through numerous projects in that field including the MetaHIT and Cross-talk European projects that INRA coordinated. Within Micalis and its recently created research laboratory MetaGenoPolis, INRA scientists now explore
the billions of bacteria that inhabit the human intestine to demonstrate that it is possible to protect, restore and graft intestinal bacteria in order to prevent and treat chronic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes or Crohn’s disease.
About Seventure Partners:
Seventure Partners is a leading venture capital firm in Europe. Since 1997, Seventure has invested in innovative businesses with high growth potential in digital technologies in France and Germany and in the life sciences field across Europe, with currently over €500m in assets under management. In life sciences, the four areas of focus include biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, connected health and medtech, industrial biotechnology and cleantech, and last but not least: the microbiome, nutrition, personalized medicine and food. Seventure Partners also considers investments in the field of diagnostics, biomarkers, drug delivery systems, lifestyle healthcare and services.
Investments can range between €500k and €10m per round, or up to €20m per company, from early to late stage.
In December 2013, Seventure Partners successfully launched its ‘Health for Life Capital’ Fund which attracted strategic investments from prestigious organizations including Danone, Tereos, Tornier, Lesaffre as well as entrepreneurs and financial institutions.
Seventure is a subsidiary of Natixis, the corporate investment management and financial services arm of Groupe BPCE,
the second-largest French bank.
For more information, please visit: www.seventure.com
