Arctic Therapeutics announced this week that it has raised €26.5 million, a sum bankrolled by investors including the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, the Icelandic investment firm Kaldbakur and the strategic player Sanos Group.
The company will use the proceeds to carry out a pivotal phase 2b/3 trial of its lead candidate program AT-001, an oral treatment for the rare dementia hereditary cystatin C amyloid angiopathy (HCCAA). Arctic also plans to kick off a phase 2a trial of another program, AT-004, for the treatment of acne vulgaris.
Supercharging discovery of treatments for difficult diseases
Arctic Therapeutics was spun off from the US Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) in 2015 and harnesses genomics to supercharge the discovery of treatments for difficult diseases. It leverages genealogy databases and biobanks from Iceland’s population to help it to map the genetic causes of diseases and guide the search for effective treatments.
AT-001 is designed to disrupt harmful clusters of proteins in the brain called amyloid fibrils by interfering with a type of chemical binding important to these clusters called disulfide bonds. The compound showed the potential to clear clusters of the mutated protein human cystatin C (hCC), which are linked to HCCAA, in a phase 2a trial in 2021. Arctic also plans to deploy AT-001 for the treatment of other forms of familial dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Meanwhile, AT-004 is a skin treatment that blocks an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase, which normally breaks down the neurochemical acetylcholine. This means there is more acetylcholine to trigger anti-inflammatory processes in the skin and reduce acne symptoms. The company also aims to explore the potential of AT-004 in skin conditions including atopic dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis.
Arctic’s pipeline also includes candidate treatments for a range of conditions including autoimmune diseases, Parkinson’s disease, uveitis and asthma.
Support from the EIC Scaling Club
Last year, Arctic joined the EIC’s Scaling Club – a group with the mission to scale up 20% of its members into European unicorns. The membership includes fundraising support, leadership mentoring and coaching in addition to partnership matchmaking and recruitment support.
“In Europe alone, dementia affects over ten million people – placing immense strain on families, healthcare systems, and economies,” said Svetoslava Georgieva, chair of the EIC Fund board, in a public statement.
“By providing an equity investment in Arctic Therapeutics, the EIC Fund is supporting ground-breaking preventive treatments that have the potential to change the trajectory of this crisis, improve quality of life, and alleviate the burden on healthcare infrastructure worldwide,” Georgieva said.
