Biotech secures seed funding to progress new treatments for rare metabolic disorders

Biotech company, Azafaros, has secured seed funding — with BioGeneration Ventures (BGV) as the founding investor — to develop new treatments aimed at addressing unmet medical needs in the field of rare metabolic disorders.

Rare metabolic disorders are a broad class of severe and sometimes life-threatening inherited diseases, presenting significant unmet medical needs, with limited approved therapies. Azafaros will focus on new treatments using its proprietary small molecule compounds for patients suffering from lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs) and LSD-related diseases.

These small molecule compounds interfere with the metabolism of glycolipids that is disturbed in patients with LSD and LSD-related disorders, with the intention of counteracting the underlying pathological effects.

Additionally, the company has exclusively licensed a library of novel compounds and patents from Leiden University and Amsterdam UMC that were originally discovered by Professor Hans Aerts and his co-workers. With this broad research collaboration, Azafaros will benefit from the experience of the research group in progressing the technology.

“I feel very privileged to lead Azafaros,” stated Olivier Morand, senior leader in pharma strategic development for early- and late-phase products who has joined Azafaros as CEO. “I anticipate that with our focused efforts the company will be able to develop high performing drugs out of the Leiden University and Amsterdam UMC compound library, supported by a solid patent position, and based on strong scientific rationale and sound clinical approaches.”

“We are very excited to be able to support the development of new treatment modalities for LSDs with a founding team that has strong scientific and business experience in a field with clear unmet medical needs,” highlighted Edward van Wezel, managing partner at BGV and member of the board of directors. “We strongly believe that these new compounds have the potential to offer better clinical outcome for patients in the future.”