Disco Pharmaceuticals, a Cologne, Germany- and Schlieren, Switzerland-based biotech company developing drugs in the field of cancer cells, raised €20M in Seed funding.
Backers included Sofinnova Partners, Panakes Partners, M Ventures and AbbVie Ventures. Biopharma executives Dieter Weinand (previously CEO at Bayer Pharmaceuticals) and Carsten Reinhardt (CDO at Immatics), join the DISCO Board of Directors as Chairman and Independent Director, respectively.The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its R&D sector.Spun out of ETH Zürich, with founders from ETH, the University of Cologne and Stanford University, and founded in May 2022 by Prof. Roman Thomas, Dr. Johannes Heuckmann, Prof. Bernd Wollscheid and Prof. Julien Sage, Disco Pharmaceuticals employs a scalable technology to map the surfaceome of cancer cells and develop first-in-class cancer drugs. It does so by comprehensively identifying druggable targets, as well as protein communities (i.e., different proteins that form nanoscale organizations on a cell), across the entire cancer cell surface at scale, thus uncovering new information that neither genome nor transcriptome sequencing can provide. By knowing which proteins are present on the cell surface, and how they are associated within protein communities, Disco can design specific binders, boosting expected efficacy and reducing side effects.Disco has completed the first-ever map of the surfaceome of a cancer type, Small Cell Lung Cancer, (SCLC) and is developing proprietary antibody-based treatments for SCLC, which has historically been difficult to treat. DISCO is currently working on Microsatellite-Stable Colorectal Cancer, which is associated with a high unmet medical need and for which only a few treatment options are available. The company’s pipeline includes further undisclosed programs.16/01/2024
