Vandria funding news – Lausanne-based Vandria Secures $30.7Million in Series A Round Funding

Vandria is developing first-in-class small molecule mitophagy inducers against a novel target to rejuvenate cells and treat age-related and chronic diseases.

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Hevolution Foundation is focused on investing in innovative science to support healthy aging. Dolby Family Ventures, in life sciences, invests in early-stage precision neuroscience and platform companies. In association with the financing, Jens Eckstein, Investment Partner at Hevolution Foundation, will join Vandria’s board of directors.

Jens Eckstein, Investment Partner Hevolution Foundation said, “We are excited by the potential of mitophagy as a new therapeutic approach with strong disease-modifying effects for an aging world population that faces cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Vandria’s pipeline offers even wider potential to address other age-related and chronic diseases of the muscle, lung and liver. This investment aligns with our mission to fund innovations that help catalyse the shift from lifespan to healthspan so that everyone can live healthier lives for longer.”

Sourav Kole, Managing Director, Dolby Family Ventures said, “Given the association of mitophagy to neurodegeneration and other disorders and Vandria’s robust preclinical dataset in showing neuroprotective effects and the potential to improve cognition, we are delighted to invest in the company to demonstrate this potential via clinical studies.”

In addition to the equity financing, It has secured CHF4.2M in prestigious non-dilutive funding: two Innosuisse grants to support VNA-318 and an Eurostars grant to support the generation of pre-clinical data for mitophagy drug candidates in Vandria’s muscle program.

Klaus Dugi, CEO of Vandria, said: “I am delighted to welcome Hevolution Foundation and Dolby Family Ventures, alongside ND Capital, to support our transformation into a clinical stage company. This Financing will enable us to progress further in clinical development with runway from the series A to complete the Single Ascending Dose (SAD) and Multiple Ascending Dose (MAD) first-in-man Phase 1 study of VNA-318 and to initiate three parallel Phase 1b / 2a efficacy studies in 2025, subject to positive progress in the Phase 1 and regulatory approvals.”

About Vandria

Vandria is at the vanguard of mitochondrial therapeutics. It is developing first-in-class mitophagy inducers that rejuvenate cells to treat age-related and chronic diseases. Its lead program, VNA-318 is a brain-penetrant, patent-protected, mitophagy inducer which has been shown to acutely improve memory and learning and to have strong disease-modifying effects in models of neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. VNA-318 is expected to enter the clinic in 2024.