Tetraneuron raises €5 million for its gene therapy against Alzheimer

The biotechnology company Tetraneuron, founded in 2012, completed a €5 million funding round last December, aimed at advancing its innovative gene therapy for Alzheimer’s disease into the clinical development phase.

The transaction brings in GIMIC Ventures, a venture capital fund based in Karlsruhe, Germany, as a new institutional investor, along with several private family offices.

The capital raised will enable the company, led by entrepreneur Ángel Lucio, to take decisive steps, including the submission of a clinical trial authorization application in Europe. This represents a key milestone for its therapeutic approach, which focuses on tackling the root causes of neurodegeneration rather than merely treating the symptoms of the disease.

Founded as a spin-off from the Cajal Institute and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Tetraneuron has developed a gene therapy platform based on E2F4DN, a dominant-negative form of the transcription factor E2F4. According to the company, this is a revolutionary approach, as it acts at the molecular level by modulating a master gene regulator essential for neuronal homeostasis, marking a paradigm shift compared to current protein-focused therapies.

“This funding represents a transformative moment for Tetraneuron and for the millions of patients urgently awaiting new treatments for Alzheimer’s,” said Ángel Lucio Pereira, CEO of the company. He added that “the upcoming submission of the European CTA authorization is the culmination of years of rigorous research and brings us one step closer to offering a potentially revolutionary, disease-modifying therapy to patients worldwide.”

Lucio also emphasized that “the TET-101 product has demonstrated unique safety and efficacy profiles in preclinical studies, avoiding the toxicological issues typically associated with therapies that regulate master genes.”