France
January 8, 2011
Meiogenix SAS, a French start-up biotech company developing a new genomic technology, closed its first round of financing of 1,2M€ from Kurma Biofund, a French venture capital fund focused in life sciences.
Meiogenix SAS closes its first round of financing with Kurma Biofund last 26th of November with an investment of 1,2M € the company, a recent spin-off from the Institut Curie and the INRA-transfert in Paris, holds from the Institute Curie and the INRA an exclusive worldwide license for a technology that allows the modulation of the homologous recombination in eukaryotic cells.
"We are pleased to have Kurma Biofund as investor. This gives us the opportunity to further develop this breakthrough technology and validate it in several organisms. Our technology facilitates the natural process that introduces genetic diversity, allowing the generation of novel natural varieties of organisms with interesting commercial potentials," says Giacomo Bastianelli, President and CEO of Meiogenix. The technology is based on Spo11, the enzyme that causes the double-strand break in the DNA and initiates the process of meiotic recombination before gamete formation. The Spo11-assisted technology, developed by Dr. Alain Nicolas who leads a CNRS group at the Institut Curie, allows targeted stimulation of natural genetic exchanges between the parental chromosomes leading to the diversification of the parental genetic information in progenies. "The mainstream application is the generation of novel varieties of microorganisms, plants and mammals, derived from natural variants. The beauty of the technology is that it helps a natural mechanism of the cell where the new varieties obtained will not be considered GMOs," explains Alain Nicolas.
"This technology is very innovative and promising, but still needs two to three years of development prior to being used commercially. The financing brought by Kurma Biofund will allow filling this gap. In addition, Kurma Biofund brings around the table a group of experienced professionals who will help the company to make the right decisions. We and INRA do hope that Meiogenix will be able to help putting on the market either new drugs for our patients, or new varieties of plants contributing to better feed humanity," says Damien Salauze, director at Institut Curie.With the investment in Meiogenix, Kurma Biofund is realizing its first spin-off from the Institut Curie. "We are very proud of our investment in Meiogenix, a French company co-owned with Institut Curie and INRA-Transfert. I must thank Institut Curie, founding academic partner of Kurma Biofund, and Damien Salauze and his team for the professionalism and stamina that they have demonstrated in this complex process. Based on this first success, we are confident that more companies will be founded from this partnership with Institut Curie. This success also demonstrates the relevance of Kurma’s tech transfer approach that creates focused companies around breakthrough science that has been discovered and patented by the academic partners of the fund," says Thierry Laugel, managing partner of Kurma Life Sciences Partners.
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