Cytoki Pharma announced a $45 million series A financing led by existing investor Lundbeckfonden Emerge.

Cytoki Pharma, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based biotech company, announced the completion of a $45 million capital funding round.

The money was raised from investors led by existing shareholders from Lundbeckfonden Emerge (Denmark) together with Seventure Partners (France), +ND Capital (Switzerland) and Ysios Capital (Spain).

Proceeds will be used for the development of the lead program through Phase 1 and Phase 2a clinical testing in Inflammatory Bowel Disease and explore the therapeutic potential in other diseases characterized by injury to epithelial tissues in various organs.

Cytoki Pharma, founded in 2019 by CEO Rasmus Jørgensen , is advancing a long-acting Interleukin-22 (IL-22) variant to clinical testing with initial focus on Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The lead compound is selected from a full program of therapeutic IL-22 variants based on an exclusive license from Novo Nordisk A/S. IL-22-based therapeutics have immense potential in treating diseases characterized by injuries to certain tissues in the body of so called “epithelial” origin.

IL-22 has proven to be attractive for treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), where damage to the intestinal barrier remains the biggest unaddressed pathology of the disease.

The Cytoki IL-22 program is based on a highly validated lipidation technology for generating long-acting protein therapeutics and next-generation drug formats – here applied to an emerging drug class that has demonstrated strong initial clinical promise.