Milan, November 30, 2023 – Utopia SIS, a Simple Investment Company operating in the Life Sciences sector, and CrowdFundMe SpA, a crowdinvesting portal listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, are launching a collaboration for the success of the capital raise of CaSRevolution.
The latter, in particular, is an innovative startup that is developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, using an innovative approach with the goal of stopping or at least slowing down neurodegeneration. On one hand, CrowdFundMe has launched a crowdfunding equity campaign for CaSRevolution on its platform, while on the other hand, Utopia SIS has invested €800,000 in the issuer as the lead investor, after having already invested €700,000 in a previous round.
“The collaboration represents the first experiment of a new investment strategy that we aim to make structural in the coming months, thanks to agreements with Venture Capital players that we expect to conclude shortly,” says Tommaso Baldissera Pacchetti, CEO of CrowdFundMe. “Starting with a high-quality entity like Utopia, supporting CaSRevolution’s project for combating Alzheimer’s, is a source of great pride for our group.”
The solution under development by CaSRevolution exploits a new receptor-based mechanism of action that explains the clinical manifestations of the pathology. To date, there are no effective treatments on the market, which is why the issuer is focusing on an innovative approach that aims to achieve not just a palliative but rather a therapy with high efficacy. To achieve this goal, CaSRevolution can rely on an excellent team that has developed a sustainable plan allowing the company to define new pharmaceutical compounds to be tested in humans within 4 years.
The fundraising goal is to support this activity until the patent filing of the first series of molecules. In detail, the company team is led by CEO Gabriele Grecchi (formerly Credit Suisse, Zambon, KLISBio), Head of drug development Mario Pellegatti (formerly GSK), and Head of drug discovery Mario Varasi (formerly Genextra). And the board of directors has been enriched with fundamental expertise thanks to the entry of Luca Benatti, Andrea Pellacani, and Antonio Falcone.
Benatti is also a member of the Board of Directors of Intercept, a company listed on Nasdaq, and brings with him extensive experience and a network of relationships with international VC funds, as well as Exit experiences in neurodegeneration (Newron, listed in Zurich). Pellacani, head of R&D at Alfasigma and former head of research at Menarini, has already worked in the United States on the development of therapeutic treatments against Alzheimer’s.
Gabriele Grecchi explained: “Thanks to the contribution of a team with over thirty years of experience in this sector, CaSRevolution has developed an extremely capital-efficient drug discovery strategy, identifying excellent counterparts for the execution of medicinal chemistry and preclinical validation activities. Utopia’s investment together with the capital raising initiative through the CrowdFundMe platform will ensure adequate financial coverage for the initial phases of the project.”
The company’s mission is particularly relevant, as Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes the most common form of human dementia. In the United States alone, there are over 6 million people affected by this pathology (source: Alz Journals), and the numbers globally are expected to increase due to the aging population.
In recent years, there have been significant M&A (merger and acquisition) and licensing operations in the Alzheimer’s sector, such as the partnership between Allergan and Heptares Therapeutics in 2016 (for an estimated consideration of over $3 billion) or that between Biogen and Eisai in 2014 (over $1 billion). However, these operations have not yielded the expected results. The company’s forecast is that CaSRevolution may already attract concrete interest from big pharma during the late discovery phase (before entering clinical trials), as they are constantly searching for new assets to add to their pipelines.