Calixar secures €875K funding round to develop membrane protein services

18 June 2012

Lyon-based Calixar SAS has completed an initial funding round in which it raised €875,000 from private investors and business angels.

The funds will enable Calixar to develop its international operations for membrane protein services and move its research programs forward. It also means the company will be able to offer its clients more targeted services and give a broader client base easy access to its unique technology. The technology has already been validated on a score of targets (including GPCR receptors, ionic channels, transporters and viral proteins).

The investors that took part in this financing were Siparex, Veymont Participations, INPG Entreprise SA, and regional business angels from the Health-Angels Rhone-Alpes, Savoie Angels and Grenoble Angels networks.

The company possesses an exclusive worldwide license for the exploitation of two patents held by the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) and the University of Lyon. These relate to generic membrane protein extraction and crystallization processes utilizing original non-denaturing reagents. The aim is to make targets more immutable so the process of discovering new drugs and vaccines is rendered more reliable and more efficient.

Knowing how to produce, isolate and purify therapeutic or vaccine targets correctly is a major challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Calixar’s unique approach makes it possible to preserve the native state of membrane proteins, which are involved in numerous pathologies and currently account for over 70 per cent of therapeutic targets.
 
“We are delighted to be able to share our vision and our development with a highly motivated group of investors, who recognized the innovative aspect of our approach,” explained the chairman and co-founder of Calixar, Emmanuel Dejean. “We plan to recruit 30 people between now and 2016 and expect to be generating annual revenues of EUR 4.5 million by then, solely from our fee-for-service activities.”
 
“We were attracted by the potential of Calixar’s technology and the know-how of its staff, which should enable them to surmount a major technological barrier facing research laboratories and ultimately develop more efficacious therapies,” said Fabrice Paublant, president of Health Angels Rhone-Alpes. “Calixar recently signed several research agreements in Europe and the United States, and the funds it has now raised will enable it to expand its international activities.”