Cambridge, UK:
o2h Ventures is thrilled to announce a follow-on investment in PharmEnable, a Cambridge-based, female-lead biotech company that specializes in drug discovery with a focus on chemical novelty, diversity, and complexity. PharmEnable is revolutionizing treatments available for cancer and neurological diseases by designing the next generation of small-molecule drugs.
During the recent funding round, PharmEnable successfully closed a total of $7.5 million in pre-Series A funding, which was led by MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH), the venture arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Group. The other esteemed participating investors include Cambridge Enterprise and Martlet Capital, among others.
These funds will be utilized to support ongoing projects in co-discovery and wholly-owned initiatives, while further expanding research and development efforts across oncology and neurology targets. PharmEnable utilizes its proprietary platform to develop targeted therapies that replicate the specificity of biologics but with the improved efficacy, absorption, and distribution properties enabled by custom-designed oral small molecules. Additionally, PharmEnable has expanded its board, with two highly experienced board directors joining.
o2h Ventures were seed investors and invested in PharmEnable in 2020 as they spun out of Cambridge University. This was one of the first investments from their HMRC-approved knowledge-intensive EIS funds, which aim to invest in early-stage companies covering therapeutic drug opportunities or enabling drug discovery or services.
Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures, said: “Hannah Sore has done an amazing job at building the team and executing on business deals that led to investors backing the company in this pre-series A investment. The relationships that she has built with the pharma and biotech community, including that with Sosei Therapeutics, is exciting and I hope will lead to commercially exciting future collaborations.”
Dr Hannah Sore, CEO of PharmEnable, said: “At PharmEnable, we believe that everyone deserves safe and effective treatments, and we are committed to applying the principles of chemical novelty, diversity and 3-dimensionality to design powerful new small molecule drugs. I am delighted that o2h Ventures is further supporting PharmEnable during our Pre-Series A, enabling our mission to deliver life-changing medicines to patients who need them.”
About PharmEnable
PharmEnable is a Cambridge (UK) based biotech developing the next generation of small molecule drugs, with a focus on novelty, diversity and 3-dimensionality. The company’s interdisciplinary approach integrates advanced medicinal chemistry expertise and cutting-edge AI/computational methods to deliver novel therapeutics for diseases with high clinical need. PharmEnable’s proprietary drug discovery platform provides a powerhouse for generating novel chemical entities against challenging targets. It models drug targets to identify their key molecular interactions, and then maps and expands the novel chemical space that can modulate a specific target. Advanced medicinal chemistry expertise guides the development of synthesizable, complex and 3-dimensional small molecules, increasing specificity and reducing off-target effects. PharmEnable’s vision is to reproduce the specificity of biologics in the powerful and scalable form of a small molecule.
For more information see www.pharmenable.com
About o2h Ventures
The o2h Ventures ‘Human Health’ SEIS and KI EIS funds make tax-efficient investments in Pre-Seed and Seed stage companies that address human disease: we fund the development of novel therapeutic treatments; we help build new services and tools offerings throughout the biotech ecosystem, and we spur the creation of software & artificial intelligence that will change healthcare.
The o2h team are leaders in the biotech community and have been actively involved as investors, holding various board/industry positions as well as being engaged in grassroots scientific activity for over 20 years. o2h Ventures operates from their proprietary 2.7 acre Mill SciTech Park where they are developing a unique model for incubating small life science companies.
For more information or to invest in the fund, please visit www.o2hventures.com
Media Contact:
Juhi Shah
Marketing Manager
