Disco Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company based in Cologne, Germany and Schlieren, Switzerland, has raised €20 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Sofinnova Partners, Panakes Partners, M Ventures, and AbbVie Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to expand its operations and research and development sector. Dieter Weinand, former CEO at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, and Carsten Reinhardt, CDO at Immatics, have joined Disco Pharmaceuticals’ Board of Directors.
Disco Pharmaceuticals was spun out of ETH Zürich and was founded in May 2022 by Prof. Roman Thomas, Dr. Johannes Heuckmann, Prof. Bernd Wollscheid, and Prof. Julien Sage. The company employs a scalable technology to map the surfaceome of cancer cells and develop first-in-class cancer drugs. By comprehensively identifying druggable targets and protein communities across the entire cancer cell surface, Disco Pharmaceuticals can design specific binders, increasing efficacy and reducing side effects.
The company has already completed the first-ever map of the surfaceome for Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) and is developing proprietary antibody-based treatments for this historically difficult-to-treat cancer type. It is also working on Microsatellite-Stable Colorectal Cancer, which has high unmet medical need. Disco Pharmaceuticals’ pipeline includes undisclosed programs.
