GlycoEra secures US$130M Series B to advance autoimmune therapies

SWITZERLAND— GlycoEra, a Swiss biotechnology company, has successfully closed an oversubscribed Series B financing round, raising US$130 million to advance its innovative treatments for autoimmune diseases.

The funds will primarily support the clinical development of its lead drug candidate, GE8820, a protein degrader targeting immunoglobulin G4 (IgG4), an antibody subtype implicated in various autoimmune conditions.

The financing round was led by Novo Holdings, a prominent investor in life sciences, and attracted a strong lineup of new and existing investors.

New contributors included Catalio Capital Management, LifeArc Ventures, QIA, Agent Capital, MP Healthcare Venture Management (a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma), and Sixty Degree Capital.

Existing backers such as Sofinnova Partners, Roche Ventures, Bristol Myers Squibb, and 5AM Ventures also participated, underscoring broad confidence in GlycoEra’s technology and growth potential.

GlycoEra’s platform focuses on precision extracellular protein degraders that selectively eliminate disease-causing proteins outside of cells.

Unlike traditional therapies, the company’s bispecific degraders harness a natural biological process to rapidly and sustainably remove pathogenic proteins while minimizing systemic off-target effects.

This approach is scalable and modular due to a streamlined single-step recombinant production process.

The lead program, GE8820, is designed to selectively degrade pathogenic IgG4 autoantibodies without causing immunosuppression.

These rogue antibodies are known to drive multiple autoimmune diseases, including pemphigus, muscle-specific kinase myasthenia gravis, primary membranous nephropathy, and autoimmune encephalitis.

Preclinical studies have demonstrated the rapid and deep degradation of IgG4, offering hope for transformative therapies for patients with these conditions.

With the new funding, GlycoEra plans to initiate first-in-human clinical trials for GE8820 later this year.

Additionally, the company aims to advance a second program into clinical development and further expand its pipeline of precision immunology medicines targeting extracellular proteins in autoimmune and other diseases.

In conjunction with the financing, GlycoEra has strengthened its leadership by adding three new members to its board of directors: Max Klement, Matthew Hobson from Catalio Capital Management, and Sohaib Mir, a partner at LifeArc Ventures.

The company operates from Switzerland with additional offices and laboratories in the United States.

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