STipe Therapeutics was one of the first companies accepted in the BII program, Creation House when it launched in 2018. In September 2019, the immune-oncology start-up raised EUR 20M in a Series A financing round and with that, they exited the program.
However, STipe Therapeutics has just signed an agreement with BII to stay at the facilities on market terms to further develop the company while still being part of the entrepreneurial environment.
STipe Therapeutics is a spin-out from the Department of Biomedicine, University of Aarhus, and was founded by Associate Professor Martin Jakobsen, Ph.D. in medicine, and Claus Olesen, Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics.
We talked to Claus Olesen about the company’s plans.
What has happened since you got funding?
We have been and are still focused on building an organization that can handle and executes all our deliverables for the next two years. That means establishing collaborations with the industry and academic institutions as well as onboarding more people to the team. We have also been reaching out to potential pharma partners to let them know that we are now generating data to go to clinical trials.
What are you working on now?
We are working on optimizing our current technology and still bringing more people on board. The teams consist of nine full-time employees, and we are recruiting an additional hand full. We are also continuously making sure that we are covered from an IP perspective to maintain a strong portfolio. We expect to nominate a candidate in Q4 this year, and the EUR 20M funding will get us to the IND and CTA filing. We plan to reach the clinic in approx. two years’ time.
Why have you decided to stay at BII?
We have a base in both Aarhus and Copenhagen and split the team between the two locations. BII is an entrepreneurial environment with access to knowledge and the Copenhagen area offers a large pool of candidates and talents with biotech and pharma expertise. BII was instrumental for us in raising the Series A investment as the DKK10 M convertible loan in the Creation House program gave us a better start. It allowed us to develop higher quality and clearly differentiated data package that attracted many investors and generated interest from multiple big pharma companies. Furthermore, staying at BII also gives us the opportunity to pass on our experiences and learnings to early start-ups at BII.