Allegria Therapeutics: Seed financing for mast cell-mediated diseases

Allegria Therapeutics (“ALLEGRIA”), a Swiss biotech company redefining the treatment landscape of therapeutics for mast cell-mediated diseases, announced today a Seed Financing of USD 3.5 Million by founding investor Forty51 Ventures.

Furthermore, the company announced the appointment of co-founder Maria van Dongen, PhD as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. van Dongen brings broad industry experience with a strong track record in Pharma. She previously held positions at amongst others Johnson & Johnson, where she facilitated external partnerships aiming at e.g., the effective targeting of RNA processing and the discovery of peptide-based therapeutics. Previously, she led numerous R&D projects that included the discovery of highly innovative orally active broad-spectrum influenza antivirals, and an R&D platform dedicated to pharmaceutical interventions for disease prevention.

ALLEGRIA’s R&D activities focus on mast cells as mediators of allergy and inflammatory diseases, a class of indications that constitutes an increasing burden world-wide.

More and more patients suffer from the impact that these conditions have on their quality of life. The associated socioeconomic burden is huge, and despite the growing medical need, the therapeutic treatment options are still notoriously limited with overall poor outcome.

With the current financing, ALLEGRIA will progress a differentiated portfolio of proprietary therapeutic approaches around targets that selectively modulate mast cells to more effectively address patients’ needs.

ALLEGRIA collaborates with world leading partners in fundamental mast cell biology, drug discovery and preclinical drug evaluation including Prof. Marcus Maurer, Managing Director of the Institute for Allergy Research at Berlin’s Charité and Dr. Philipp Starkl, Principal Investigator at the Medical University of Vienna.

Forty51 Ventures have been instrumental as an early stage financial and operational supporter in the formation of the company. ALLEGRIA was incorporated in Basel, Switzerland, a broadly recognized hotspot for biotech and pharma.