Tridek-one Closes a €16 Million Financing Round to Develop First-in-class Immune Checkpoint Agonists

Tridek-One SAS (the ‘Company’), a leading biotech start-up specialized in the research and development of CD31 agonists to restore the immune balance, today announces it has closed a €16 million ($16.1M) financing round led by the Swiss VC Pureos Bioventures with the participation of new investors Bpifrance, through its InnoBio2 fund, and Bioqube Ventures (Belgium), as well as historical investors AdBio partners and Advent Life Sciences. The funds will primarily be used to identify development candidates against auto-immune diseases, to conduct IND-enabling studies and to further build the organization. The company previously raised €3M ($3.02M) in a first round in 2019 involving AdBio partners (FR) and Advent Life Sciences (UK).

Founded in 2018 by Dr. Giuseppina Caligiuri and Pr. Antonino Nicoletti, researchers at INSERM Unit 1148 (Paris, France), with the support of historical investor AdBio partners, Tridek-One is developing a novel CD31 agonist approach to modulate immune activation for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Tridek-One also appointed Laurence de Schoulepnikoff as chief executive officer as of July 1, 2022. Laurence is a seasoned pharma and biotech professional with broad experience in transactions and R&D operations. She has worked in VC-funded biotech start-ups and mid-size private companies as well as large corporate organizations. Laurence joins Tridek-One from AMAL Therapeutics, a leading Swiss biotechnology company focused on therapeutic cancer vaccines, where she spent the last three years as chief business officer and chief operating officer. AMAL was acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim in 2019. Laurence will now be leading Tridek-One’s strategy and development, and strengthening its general organization.

“I am delighted and grateful to have the opportunity to lead Tridek-One as we plan to reach important preclinical milestones and build a first-class biotech organization for the treatment of auto-immune diseases,” said Laurence de Schoulepnikoff, CEO of Tridek-One.

Following the fundraising, Klaus Breiner of Pureos Bioventures, and Benoit Barteau of Bpifrance, are joining the company’s board of directors. Erik van den Berg, CEO of AM-Pharma, joins as independent chairman of the board of directors.

“It is a pleasure to join as chairman whilst the company is building a great team, with a professional syndicate of international investors committing to decades of research by the team of Dr. Giuseppina Caligiuri and Pr Antonino Nicoletti,” said Erik van den Berg, the chairman of the board at Tridek-One.

“There is still an important, unsatisfied medical need in many auto-immune diseases. Agonizing immune inhibitory receptors like CD31 has the potential to rebalance the immune system without being more broadly immunosuppressive. We are excited to further translate this concept with Tridek-One through its discovery and preclinical stages,” commented Klaus Breiner, managing partner at Pureos Bioventures.

“AdBio partners was the founding investor in Tridek-One in 2018; we were further joined by Advent Life Sciences. We are delighted to welcome additional investors who believe in the breakthrough innovation developed by this cutting-edge company. This confirms our initial decision to be company founder and builder,” added Alain Huriez, general partner at AdBio partners.

“To be accompanied by investors who believe in our project is a fantastic opportunity. This will enable us to accelerate our work to identify and develop first-in-class immune checkpoint agonists capable of controlling serious inflammatory diseases,” concluded Dr. Giuseppina Caligiuri and Pr. Antonino Nicoletti, scientific founders of Tridek-One.