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Nanoligent raised €2.8 M and completed Seed round financing with support of i&i Biotech Fund

September 27th 2022 – Nanoligent SL, a Spanish biotech company specialized in the development of cancer treatments based on unique protein conjugates, today announces the completion of a Seed financing round of total € 2.8 M. The final closing of the Seed round consists of € 1 M investment by i&i Biotech Fund I (i&i Bio), an early-stage Life Science fund with teams in Luxemburg and Prague which is backed by the European Investment Fund. i&i Bio joined previous Nanoligent investors, Italian Angels for Growth, the largest network of business angels in Italy, and AVANTECA Partners, a Swiss privately held asset management firm.
Jaromir Zahrádka, Managing partner of i&i Bio, said: “Nanoligent is the fifth investment of our fund and it belongs to a group of targeted oncology therapies in our portfolio. We are excited by deep scientific background and uniqueness of the technology. The platform is developed by highly motivated, experienced, and fully engaged team of scientists and managers. Based on obtained scientific data, the project has a great potential to become an effective treatment for multiple metastatic-cancer types.”
Nanoligent is focused on the development of new drugs for the treatment of more than 20 different metastatic cancer types. The lead molecule is based on the targeted elimination of cancer cells overexpressing the CXCR4 receptor, a recognized biomarker for poor prognosis and therapy resistance. Nanoligent is developing a new proprietary nano-technological platform, with the potential to overcome current limitations of Antibody-Drug-Conjugates.
“Less than a third of newly diagnosed metastatic patients respond to current therapies, making metastasis one of the most pressing unsolved challenges in cancer. With the support of i&i Bio together with our existing investors, we secure our current milestone to provide the first drug candidate of our portfolio of metastasis-targeted therapies” said Montserrat Cano, CEO of Nanoligent.
 The seed round financing will allow Nanoligent to foster the development of multiple drug candidates and advance the pre-clinical development of its lead candidate in a variety of tumor types.
 “We are happy to welcome the i&i Biotech Fund I in Nanoligent. As in previous cases, we have been impressed by the depth of their scientific due diligence and the professionality of their management. They are going to be an important partner for Nanoligent and we are delighted to continue to co-invest with i&i Bio,” said Michele Marzola who, together with Alessandro Toniolo, are co-champions from IAG in this investment.
Two of the investors already joined the Nanoligent’s Board which includes: Michele Marzola (IAG), Michael Milos (Avanteca Partners), Manuel Rodríguez (Chairman) and Montserrat Cano (CEO).
“The i&i Biotech Fund I is the right partner for the further development of Nanoligent. They have shown in depth scientific knowledge as well as being well connected within the pharmaceutical network. We all together are looking forward to bringing Nanoligent’s development plan effectively to the next stages,” said Michael Milos from AVANTECA Partners.

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About Nanoligent
Nanoligent was founded in 2017 by co-founder and Chairman Manuel Rodriguez Mariscal, as a spin-off coming from more than 10 years of fruitful collaboration between the Nanobiotechnology group – NANBIOSIS U1 PPP at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, co-lead by full professor Antonio Villaverde and Principal Investigator Esther Vázquez, and the Oncogenesis and Antitumor Drug Group – NANBIOSIS U18 Nanotoxicology Unit at the Biomedical Research Institut Sant Pau of the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, headed by full professor Ramon Mangues, the three of them also co-founders of the company. Montserrat Cano joined the company in 2020, with more than 15 years of experience in pharma and biotech companies. The aim of the company is to develop a pioneering technological platform based on protein-drug nanoconjugates to target metastasis across several tumor types. www.nanoligent.com

About Italian Angels for Growth
IAG, founded in 2007, is a leader in the Italian seed venture capital: more than 270 protagonists of the entrepreneurial, financial and industrial world that invest time, skills and capital for the growth of innovative startups. Italian Angels for Growth, in more than ten years of activity, has analyzed more than 6,500 startups and its members have made over 100 investments, for a total of over 300 million euros invested by IAG members and co-investors. IAG business angels support innovative projects financially by investing their own capital, but at the same time, thanks to the mix of skills of the members, support the founders of the startups in the definition of the business model in all its aspects. www.italianangels.net

About AVANTECA Partners
AVANTECA Partners is a Swiss-based, privately held asset management company that invests in early-stage life science companies. www.avanteca.com

About i&i Bio
i&i Bio is a Luxembourg-based venture capital firm that invests in innovative European Life Sciences companies focused on drug discoveries, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health. The Fund was created thanks to the cooperation of the biotech incubator i&i Prague and the European Investment Fund (see below). With over €45M under management, i&i Bio plans to invest in about 20 early-stage companies. i&i Bio is led by an experienced team of professionals with backgrounds in private equity, healthcare and venture capital supporting entrepreneurs on their journey to global success. Thanks to the close cooperation with the fund’s sponsor, the biotech academic incubator i&i Prague, i&i Bio is supporting and advancing transformative Central European technology companies. www.inibio.eu

About European Investment Fund 
i&i Bio is supported by an investment from the EIF, with the support of:

lnnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing; and
the Pan-European Guarantee Fund (EGF), implemented by the EIF with the financial support of the Participating Member States. The objective of EGF is to respond to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that companies in the Participating Member States have sufficient short-term liquidity available to weather the crisis and are able to continue their growth and development in the medium to long-term.Nanoligent SL – B66970088

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NANBIOSIS in the NEW BOOK of the Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures (ICTS)

We are pleased to inform that the new book of Unique Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) has been published by the Spanish Ministery of Sciencie and Innovation with the collaborations of the ICTS. You can download it download it here.

The Spanish Map of Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures (ICTS, in Spanish) , goups biomedical technologies, cleanrooms, supercomputers, advanced lasers, telescopes, underground laboratories, synchrotrons, particle accelerators, biological reserves, solar, oceanic and hydraulic platforms, oceanographic research ships, and polar bases in Antarctica. A total of 29 ICTS, made up of 64 infraestructures, allow for ambitious research projects that attract first-rate talent and enhance the technological and innovative industry capacities.

As Diana Morant, Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation says in its prelude “The Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures (ICTS), are crucial for the current country project around science and innovation that we are building together: administrations, research and technology centers, companies and society. I encourage you to go through the pages of this book and discover avant-garde facilities that represent the excellent scientific and technological capabilities that exist today in Spain.”

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7th Annual Meeting of the Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures in Spain

On September 7, the annual meeting of the directors of the 29 Singular Scientific and Technical Infrastructures (ICTS) of Spain took place in Seville.

The event was organized in five round tables:

Table 1 Development of in-house technology in ICTs and its transfer
Table 2 ICTS response to crisis situations: the COVID19 pandemic and the La Palma volcano eruption
Table 3 Digital Continuum: data management and processing in ICTS
Table 4 Provision of shared ICT Services: connectivity and cybersecurity, implementation of open science in the cloud
Table 5 Stimulation of scientific vocations and social interest in ICTS
Table 6 National and international cooperation between ICTS

The Scientific Director of NANBIOSIS, Jaume Veciana, spoke at Table 5 dedicated to “Stimulation of scientific vocations and social interest in Unique Science and Technology Infrastructures (ICTS)” in which also participated the ICTS Center for Pulsed Lasers, the Astronomical Center Hispanic in Andalusia (CAHA), the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH), the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), the Great Telescope of the CANARY ISLANDS and the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES).

The meeting was attended by the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, who recalled that she remembered that the 29 ICTS contribute to providing solutions from science to present and future challenges and, in addition, are a lever of opportunities throughout the Spanish territory. In total, more than 2,300 people work in these facilities, which have an annual budget of more than 250 million euros.

The minister also highlighted that the reform of the Science, Technology and Innovation Law of September 5, 2022, regulates the for the first time. ICTS Map

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Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany) -NANBIOSIS U25 collaboration on the study of tumour microenvironment (TME) changes in Glioblastoma

The scientific coordinator of NANBIOSIS U25 “RNM: Biomedical Application I”, Ana Paula Candiota, was recently awarded with a mobility fellowship from CIBER-BBN for a scientific exchange visit to Philipps-Universität Marburg, in Marburg, Germany.


This scientific stage was motivated for a sustained collaboration between the research groups (GABRMN, in charge of U25 and Neurosurgery Lab group in Marburg), regarding the study of tumour microenvironment (TME) changes in Glioblastoma and possible relationship with the noninvasive MRSI-based biomarkers. Both groups have applied together to different funding calls including ERA-NET Transcan and Pathfinder Open, and Marburg group has hosted a predoctoral stage from a GABRMN PhD student.

The University of Marburg is the university with the longest tradition in Hesse, founded in 1527. With thirteen Leibniz Prize winners, the University of Marburg is one of the leading research institutions in the State of Hesse. Related to the Medicine Faculty of the Philipps University of Marburg is the Uniklinikum Giessend Und Marburg (UKGM), in which the Neurosurgery Lab, lead by Prof. Jörg-Walter Bartsch, is located. This group is hosting Dr. Candiota stage until September 9th.

The main objectives of this short stage are to strength the scientific collaboration, to finish pending work related to TME GL261 glioblastoma, to get familiarized with some approaches used in Marburg and not mastered by GABRMN, and finally to give a talk to group and clinical members, highlighting the potential of U25 and the translational characteristics of the common projects held by both institutions.

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