Financing to develop microbiome therapy for severe intestinal dysbiosis<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paris, France, January 12th, 2015 \u2013 Maat Pharma™, a newly formed company in the microbiome space, announces today the closing of its first \u20ac1 million of financing supported by Seventure Partners a leading European venture capital fund manager. Seventure Partners could add another tranche of \u20ac1 million to this seed round at completion of a significant development milestone of MaaT Pharma™\u2019s lead product in 2015.<\/p>\n MaaT Pharma™ co-develops its lead product with the MICALIS (www.micalis.fr) and MetaGenoPolis (www.mgps.eu) laboratories of INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research, www.inra.fr), worldwide leader in the microbiome science and therapeutic applications. INRA transfer, the tech-transfer office of INRA is also a shareholder in the company.<\/p>\n MaaT Pharma™\u2019s goal is to become the leader in the gut microbiome restoration arena. Its main co-founders are CEO Herv\u00e9 Affagard, who brings a strong track record of operational leadership in the health sector; Chairman Pierre Belichard, a serial entrepreneur who is in parallel CEO of Enterome (www.enterome.com); Jo\u00ebl Dor\u00e9, a prominent MaaT Pharma™ will use the seed round proceeds to develop a first safe and standardized microbiotherapy solution for hospital use, intended for patients suffering from treatment-induced microbial imbalance (dysbiotic enteropathies). Treating patients in a safe and efficient way with the proprietary MaaT Pharma™ microbiotherapy therapeutic solution will help eliminate gastrointestinal side-effects and will reduce the economic burden of enteropathies and their complications. It will also permit fully efficient and safe use of the existing antibiotics armament.Pierre Belichard, Chairman of MaaT Pharma™, said:<\/p>\n \u201cUnderstanding of the human gut microbiome has shown exponential advances in the last few years. The timing is right to build on this fast moving knowledge and provide well-designed therapeutic products to fit patients\u2019 needs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Herv\u00e9 Affagard, CEO of MaaT Pharma™, indicated:<\/p>\n \u201cTogether with our partner (INRA) which is at the forefront of this research, Maat Pharma™ will make a difference for millions of patients suffering from severe gut dysbiosis, in the hospital or in the community and whatever its origin – iatrogenic or infectious. MaaT Pharma™\u2019s team is delighted to have Seventure, which knows and understands the Human gut microbiome very well as its financial investor, as well as INRA as its research partner. Both are a natural fit for the company\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Notes to Editors<\/strong><\/p>\n About MaaT Pharma™:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n MaaT Pharma™ is a biotechnology company created to treat important diseases, using the power of gut microbial ecology. MaaT stands for Microbiota as a Therapy and focuses on using the clinical promises of microbiotherapy to develop innovative solutions of clinical relevance to treat unmet medical needs of dysbiosis-related diseases. <\/p>\n About the Human Intestinal Microbiome:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The Human intestinal microbiota is the name given today to the microbial population living in human intestines. It contains 10 times more bacteria than there are human cells in the body and 20 times more genes than there are genes in our genome. It is a complex personal ecosystem, usually stable, tightly adapted to the host and in constant The microbiota fulfils key physiological functions:<\/p>\n A balanced gut microbial ecology is essential to the maintenance of health and well-being.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n About INRA:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research) is a mission-oriented public research institute under the supervision of the French Ministries for Research and Agriculture, and carries out research in the fields of agriculture, food and the environment. As one of the leading agricultural research in the world, INRA maintains scientific <\/p>\n About Seventure Partners:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Seventure Partners is a leading venture capital firm in Europe. Since 1997, Seventure has invested in innovative businesses with high growth potential in digital technologies in France and Germany and in the life sciences field across Europe, with currently over \u20ac500m in assets under management. In life sciences, the four areas of focus include biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, connected health and medtech, industrial biotechnology and cleantech, and last but not least: the microbiome, nutrition, personalized medicine and food. Seventure Partners also considers investments in the field of diagnostics, biomarkers, drug delivery systems, lifestyle healthcare and services. For more information, please visit: www.seventure.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Financing to develop microbiome therapy for severe intestinal dysbiosis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"category_press":[],"year_press":[55],"class_list":["post-4622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communiques-de-presse-fr","year_press-55"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nINRA scientist who has been trailblazing the microbiome space over the last 30 years, and Pierre Rimbaud, MD recognized expert in the clinical development of microbiome-based therapeutic solutions.<\/p>\n
\nOur company has been co-founded in 2014, in France, by a well-balanced team made of scientists, entrepreneurs and scientific partners including INRA transfer as well as Seventure as a financial partner. The team’s intention is to embrace a societal project designed to deeply change our contemporary medical field.<\/p>\n
\nsymbiotic interaction with human cells and organs. There are nevertheless numerous conditions and clinical practices that impose stress to the balanced microbiota.<\/p>\n\n
\npartnerships with major scientific research institutes worldwide, universities, agronomy and veterinary schools. The Institute carries out fundamental and applied research in microbiology that aims to understand the functioning of micro-organisms and microbial ecosystems so that they can be better exploited, mastered or controlled. INRA has
\ntaken a leadership role at international level in the field of metagenomics and ecology of the Human microbial ecosystems through numerous projects in that field including the MetaHIT and Cross-talk European projects that INRA coordinated. Within Micalis and its recently created research laboratory MetaGenoPolis, INRA scientists now explore
\nthe billions of bacteria that inhabit the human intestine to demonstrate that it is possible to protect, restore and graft intestinal bacteria in order to prevent and treat chronic diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes or Crohn\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n
\nInvestments can range between \u20ac500k and \u20ac10m per round, or up to \u20ac20m per company, from early to late stage.
\nIn December 2013, Seventure Partners successfully launched its \u2018Health for Life Capital\u2019 Fund which attracted strategic investments from prestigious organizations including Danone, Tereos, Tornier, Lesaffre as well as entrepreneurs and financial institutions.
\nSeventure is a subsidiary of Natixis, the corporate investment management and financial services arm of Groupe BPCE,
\nthe second-largest French bank.<\/p>\n