Ascendis Pharma A/S has Completed its first-round of Venture Capital Financing and Acquired Complex Biosystems GmbH
Ascendis Pharma A/S, a new, privately held biotech company founded in December 2007, has completed its first-round of venture capital financing and acquired Complex Biosystems GmbH.
The Series A financing of EUR 17.6 million was led by Sofinnova Partners (France) with co-lead by Gilde Healthcare Partners (The Netherlands), and with participation by Zweite TechnoStart Ventures Fonds GmbH & Co. KG (Germany). The proceeds from the Series A financing will be used to strategically broaden Ascendis' pipeline and to position itself in the space of lifecycle management of high-value, marketed drugs.
Ascendis' commercial headquarters is based in Copenhagen, Denmark with former Life Cycle Pharma CEO Jan Møller Mikkelsen as Managing Director. Its research organization, formerly known as Complex Biosystems, is located in Heidelberg, Germany. The expertise at the two sites creates a continuum from discovery to clinical development and commercialization that facilitates rapid product development.
The Transient Linker Technology
Ascendis Pharma is built upon a novel transient linker technology, TransientLink (TransPEG technology), which conjugates peptides, proteins and small molecules to a carrier molecule in a reversible fashion. This unique reversibility allows an unmodified active drug to be released (unlinked) in the body in a precise, time-controlled fashion, creating a long-acting effect. Conventional conjugation technologies are unable to achieve this type of slow-release mechanism because the polymer cannot de-link from the drug.
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