Ghent, Belgium, 9 December 2021 – Corteria Pharmaceuticals, a French biotechnology company specialized in the development of interceptive therapies for heart failure subpopulations, today announced the successful completion of its Seed round, providing EUR 12 million to pursue the development of a series of programs in-licensed from Sanofi S.A. (Paris, France). The seed round was led by Kurma Partners and includes V-Bio Ventures, Omnes Capital, and InVivo Capital. As part of the financing, Thierry Laugel (Chair) and Peter Neubeck from Kurma Partners, Ward Capoen from V-Bio Ventures, Claire Poulard from Omnes Capital, and Luis Pareras from InVivo Capital Health will join the Board of Directors.
Despite current standard of care, heart failure continues to affect more than 60 million patients worldwide. Corteria’s R&D programs will address the full spectrum of heart failure deterioration and offer opportunities for developing transformative therapies for the treatment of worsening and acute decompensated heart failure.
Alexandre Mebazaa, Professor at Université de Paris (France): “Congestion is the main cause of repetitive hospitalization and poor quality of life in heart failure patients. Using a multi-parametric strategy, Corteria’s present development program will closely follow our patients to assess severity of congestion and benefits of these novel therapies in worsening heart failure.”
Ward Capoen, Principle at V-Bio Ventures: “Despite many advances, heart failure remains an immense burden on the health care system. We are delighted to join Corteria on its journey to bring new and highly effective solutions to the field.”
Philip Janiak, founder and CEO of Corteria, and former head of cardiovascular research at Sanofi: “We are proposing a new way for developing drugs in heart failure subpopulations, through an innovative patient stratification strategy and a better understanding of the human disease biology. In that respect, target selection has been based on human pharmacology and biomarkers to monitor target engagement in heart failure patients.”
Marie-Laure Ozoux, co-founder and CSO of Corteria, will be supporting the research effort toward drug candidate selection: “We are particularly excited to have nurtured Corteria in close working relationship with Philip and his team. Heart failure represents an incredible medical need that requires medical and pharmacological innovation as well as better patient stratification. We believe Corteria is very well equipped to address these challenges.”
About V-Bio Ventures
V-Bio Ventures is an independent venture capital firm specialized in building and financing young, innovative life sciences companies. V-Bio Ventures was established in 2015 and works closely with Belgium-based VIB, one of the world’s premier life science institutes. The fund invests throughout Europe in start-up and early-stage companies with high growth potential focusing on technologies that provide transformational improvements in the biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, diagnostics and agricultural sectors. https://v-bio.ventures/
About Corteria Pharmaceuticals
Founded in 2021, Corteria Pharmaceuticals is a privately held company developing first-in-class drugs in heart failure subpopulations. Our strategy implies innovative patient stratification and target selection based on human evidence and a better understanding of the disease biology in patients.
We are using cutting-edge methods to stratify the patients and identify those who will benefit the most from our treatments. Our focus is on worsening and acute heart failure. https://www.corteriapharma.
