Belgian biotech company Handl Therapeutics has received €3 million from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship(VLAIO) to boost the development of its first gene therapy program for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Handl Therapeutics was incorporated on September 30, 2019 with capital from an international investor group and brings together the technology and expertise of Cima University of Navarra, the University of Leuven (Belgium) and the University of Santiago de Chile (Chile).

According to Dr. José Luis Lanciego, researcher senior in Parkinson's disease at Cima and promoter of this biotech entrepreneurship initiative, "our laboratory has developed a gene therapy vector capable of attenuating, and even halting, the progressive cell death of dopamine-producing brain neurons that typically characterizes Parkinson's disease".

The progressive accumulation of alpha-synuclein protein is known to cause the loss of dopaminergic neurons. "Through this tool, based on gene transfer using vectors derived from the adeno-associated virus, it is possible to correct the deficit in an enzyme whose function is to dissolve the aggregates of this protein involved in the development of the disease," says Dr. Lanciego. Handl Therapeutics is currently completing the preclinical development of this technology, with the aim of reaching the first trials in patients with Parkinson's disease at the beginning of 2023.

Second biotech of the Cima

The Cima carries out a translational biomedical research , focused on translating preclinical results to the patient. It is an internationally recognized center for the development of gene therapy techniques for diseases that currently have no effective treatment. In addition, Dr. Lanciego's group has implemented cutting-edge experimental parkinsonian models in the biomedical field.

Handl Therapeutics becomes the second gene therapy-based biotech on Cima , following the incorporation in 2016 of Vivet Therapeutics, a biotech company based in France and Spain that develops new treatments for rare hereditary liver diseases.

Promoted thanks to the financing of a consortium of international investors specialized in health sciences, Dr. Gloria González Aseguinolaza, researcher of the Gene Therapy Program of the Cima University of Navarra, participated in its foundation.