4TEEN4 Pharmaceuticals, a German biotech start-up, is looking to raise EUR 50m to fund further clinical trials, CEO Andreas Bergmann told Mergermarket.
The company has developed a drug to treat life-threatening cardiogenic shock (CS) in patients and raised EUR 24m in a Series Cround in late January, according to a press release.
With the latest funding round, 4TEEN4 Pharmaceuticals is fully financed until the end of Phase IIa clinical trials, which will focuson confirming the efficacy and dosage optimisation and are due to start in March or April this year, Bergmann said.
The management team is currently engaging with several investors about raising the EUR 50m necessary for further clinical trialsbeyond this point, CFO Kilian Jay von Seldeneck said. The management team expects to close the next funding round in the firstquarter of 2026, he added.
The drug Procizumab (PCZ), an antibody to dipeptidyl peptidase 3 (DPP3), which has been identified as prognostic marker andmajor cause of circulator failure, has successfully passed Phase I.
4TEEN4 is currently backed by several venture capital (VC) investors including the venture capital arm of NRW.Bank, NRW.Venture, and ILB subsidiary Brandenburg Kapital.
Görlich Gruppe acted as the lead investor in the Series C funding round. It invests via its family office but also via a domestic closed-end special alternative investment fund (AIF), which is open to semi-professional investors. The fund was launched last year and is managed by GG Capital Management.
Hendrik Görlich, CEO of Görlich Gruppe, said he sees great potential for 4TEEN4’s new drug, adding that related diagnosticproducts, for which there are already licensing agreements in place, mitigate the investment risk.
Cardiogenic shock is an acute life-threatening condition affecting more than 250,000 patients in Europe, the US and Japan per year.4TEEN4 expects treatment costs to range between EUR 10,000 to EUR 40,000 per patient, which represents potential of a multi-billion revenue over the lifetime of the patent, Bergmann said.
Large pharmaceutical companies are under increasing pressure to add new drugs to their portfolios as older patents expire andimpact revenues negatively, Bergmann said. As a result, he expects there will several suitors for 4TEEN4 and its diagnostic productsas well as its drug Procizumab (PCZ) as its trials advance.
In March 2024, Cardior Pharmaceuticals, a German company involved in the development of RNA-targeting therapies for heartdiseases, was acquired by Novo Nordisk for up to EUR 1.025bn, for example.
The deal included Cardior’s lead compound CDR132L, currently in phase II clinical development for heart failure treatment.
4TEEN4 Pharmaceuticals, formerly known as Sphingotec Therapeutics, was founded in 2013 by Bergmann. He previously founded BRAHMS, which was subsequently sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific [NYSE: TMO] for EUR 330m in 2009.
by Aurelia Seidlhofer
