▼ Summary
– Laigo Bio has developed the SureTACs platform, which destroys problematic membrane proteins instead of just blocking them, targeting a class long considered “undruggable.”
– The company secured a total of €17 million in an oversubscribed seed round, with Biovance Capital joining Kurma Partners as a new co-lead investor.
– The SureTACs technology uses engineered antibodies to mark specific membrane proteins for degradation by the cell’s own waste-disposal system, removing them entirely.
– The funding will advance Laigo’s lead oncology programs toward human trials and expand discovery work into autoimmune and immunology diseases.
– Laigo plans to develop its oncology pipeline internally through preclinical stages before seeking pharmaceutical partners for clinical trials.
A new wave of funding is fueling a Dutch biotech’s mission to tackle proteins long considered undruggable. Laigo Bio has secured a total of €17 million in an oversubscribed seed round, with the final close adding €5.5 million to the initial €11.5 million raised last December. The investment syndicate is co-led by Kurma Partners and new investor Biovance Capital, whose General Partner, Dr. João Incio, will join the company’s board.
Laigo’s strategy directly confronts a fundamental limitation in conventional drug discovery. Most medicines function by blocking a harmful protein, but this requires the target to have a suitable binding site. Many of the membrane-bound proteins central to diseases like cancer and autoimmune disorders lack such pockets, rendering them inaccessible to traditional therapies. Instead of inhibition, Laigo’s SureTACs platform aims for complete removal.
The technology, which stands for Surface Removal Targeting Chimeras, engineers bispecific antibodies. These molecules act as a bridge, forcibly bringing a problematic membrane protein into contact with an E3 ligase enzyme on the cell’s surface. This engineered proximity triggers the cell’s own disposal system. The target protein is tagged for destruction, transported to a lysosome, and degraded. This process of targeted protein degradation physically eliminates the disease driver rather than just blocking its activity, a mechanism the company believes offers greater selectivity and fewer side effects.
The science originated in the laboratory of Professor Madelon Maurice at UMC Utrecht and the Oncode Institute. The fresh capital will propel Laigo’s lead oncology programs through the final stages of preclinical development toward first-in-human trials. It will also expand discovery work on three additional candidates aimed at autoimmune and immunology conditions, including graft rejection.
Laigo plans to advance its oncology pipeline internally to the completion of preclinical studies, then seek pharmaceutical partners for clinical development. The autoimmune programs are currently at an earlier research phase. The company was founded by the Oncode Institute, the Oncode Bridge Fund, and Argobio Studio, a startup studio backed by Kurma Partners, BPI France, and Angelini Ventures. Its CEO, Dr. Matthew Baker, confirmed in his role last December, brings over twenty years of experience in drug development for inflammation and oncology.
While the field of targeted protein degradation has gained momentum, pioneers have largely focused on intracellular targets. Laigo is among a select group of companies applying the E3 ligase-mediated degradation approach to the more challenging arena of membrane proteins. This frontier represents a vast pool of validated but previously inaccessible disease targets, offering a new route to potentially transformative therapies.
(Source: The Next Web)