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LISAvienna takes a look behind the scenes: KHAN-I Fund actively involved in setting up Vienna-based Cutanos GmbH

Christoph Rademacher, Professor of Molecular Drug Targeting at the University of Vienna, founded Cutanos in Vienna in 2021 together with his long-time postdoc Robert Wawrzinek. In this article, you can find out how this came about, what the company is currently working on and what role KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I (KHAN-I) plays in this.

Robert Wawrzinek, co-founder and CEO of Cutanos, summarizes: “We have developed a unique tool that allows us to deliver antigens to specific immune cells in the skin with exceptional precision. This approach leverages a specialized ligand that functions like an address tag, recognized exclusively by Langerhans cells - a subtype of dendritic cells crucial for regulating immune responses. By targeting delivery to these cells, we maximize the efficiency of active ingredients, minimizing loss and enhancing safety. Depending on the application, we can either stimulate the immune system or promote immune tolerance. As our target cells reside in the skin, painless drug delivery is possible.” The company's small, international team of experts from Austria, Germany, India, Romania and Italy works primarily in Vienna's 9th district.

From Germany to Vienna: Professor comes with a start-up

“When Mr. Rademacher and I started pursuing the idea of founding a company, we toured across Germany and presented our idea at various locations. We were also invited to Dortmund, where KHAN-I is based. Our technology was met with great enthusiasm, and there was a strong willingness to embrace risks alongside us to break new technological ground,” recalls Wawrzinek. He adds: ”KHAN-I was actually the driving force in the beginning. At that time, Mr. Rademacher was appointed Professor of Molecular Drug Targeting in Vienna and we thought it makes sense to set up the company in close proximity. That's why we took a closer look at Austria and discovered excellent conditions. It was a good thing that University of Vienna gave us access to laboratory space. We didn't have to set up the laboratory infrastructure ourselves and thanks to a fee-for-service contract we were able to get started quickly.” In this case, the university's appointment strategy not only opened up a promising scientific field in Vienna, but also led to establishing a company in the city. This in turn attracted further experts from Austria and abroad.

Cutanos is supported by the regional innovation ecosystem – from aws and FFG to ABA and LISAvienna. Wawrzinek: “Everyone has helped us. It was definitely the right decision to go to Vienna. We highly value not only the funding programs and outstanding infrastructure in the region but also the wealth of local expertise. One example is IVI, the International Vaccine Institute, which opened a branch in Vienna in 2023.” For early stage biotechnology companies with drug development projects at the forefront of science, it is difficult to raise funds to set up and operate a laboratory. Cutanos had a head start thanks to the arrangement with University of Vienna. Other companies take advantage of the Vienna Business Agency's Startup Labs at the Vienna BioCenter, which offer flexible rental options.

Langerhans Cell Targeted Delivery System (LC-TDS)

Cutanos’ selective drug delivery platform, the Langerhans Cell Targeted Delivery System (LC-TDS), stands out for its modular design. The LC-specific ligand can be directly attached to an active ingredient, such as a protein antigen, or used to equip transport vehicles carrying active ingredients. An example of the latter are lipid-based nanoparticles for mRNAs as known from SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The ligand ensures that its cargo is transported specifically to Langerhans cells located in the skin. This is achieved by binding to Langerin surface receptors on these immune cells, allowing the transported active substance to be taken up. Active ingredients can then either activate the immune system or trigger tolerance, making the new Cutanos technology highly versatile. By activating B and T cells, for example, antiviral vaccines or cancer therapies are made possible. The targeted generation of immune tolerance, on the other hand, plays a central role in the treatment of autoimmune diseases or allergies. Robert Wawrzinek states: “We are the first to be able to target these special cells, which are involved in many different immune responses. We have thus broken new immunological ground and can control immune modulation. Many have tried to do this before us but haven’t succeeded.”

As Langerhans cells are located in the skin, it is possible to administer medication not only via intramuscular and intradermal injections, but also via microneedles or creams and therefore painlessly. Targeted delivery of active ingredients means that little material is lost, allowing for a significantly reduced dose. This in turn makes it possible to treat more people with the same amount of active ingredient – with fewer side effects, it is hoped. At the same time, using less material creates the possibility of packaging different active ingredients together and administering them in combination, which opens up interesting new possibilities, especially for mRNA vaccines.

KHAN-I driving innovation in early-stage projects

The €70 million KHAN-I fund invests primarily in academic projects but also in promising start-ups and spin-offs. The focus is on the development of novel therapeutic approaches for indications with unmet medical need. KHAN-I General Partners Michael Krebs and Johannes Bange have been advising Cutanos since mid-2020. Collaboration is particularly intensive during the very early phases, with regular short-term consultations. These facilitate addressing everyday questions and challenges faced by a team of founders and joint development of strategies and potential solutions. Michael Krebs has been a founder, start-up manager and managing director in various life science organizations for around 25 years, which is why he understands the needs and requirements of young biotech companies particularly well. He remembers the founding period of Cutanos: “The company was my first project with KHAN-I. As it was to be founded in Austria, I was able to support the development of Cutanos from the very beginning thanks to my many years of experience in Vienna.“ Johannes Bange, on the other hand, has a sound scientific background and more than two decades of experience in drug development. His expertise includes founding start-ups, and preclinical drug development in a VC-financed biotech company and an international pharmaceutical group.

The idea for the new approach Cutanos is pursuing was originally born at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam. The technology was developed over many years in Christoph Rademacher's research group. One of his post-doctoral students, Robert Wawrzinek, now CEO of Cutanos, agreed to help found the company and come to Vienna from Berlin. Initially, a smaller project was financed, which was still based at the Max Planck Society. In 2021, the company was founded in Vienna and a €1.8 million financing round was completed. In addition to KHAN-I as the lead investor, High-Tech Gründerfonds, which invests outside Germany in individual cases, xista Ventures and Landsdowne Partners participated in the seed financing round.

Expertise and money to guide the way

Michael Krebs explains: “At KHAN-I, we see ourselves not only as financiers, but also provide operational support and contribute a lot of experience and our network – especially when not all necessary skills are available in the founder team at the beginning. At Cutanos, for example, I initially took on the commercial agendas until we were later able to bring a CFO into the company via a headhunter. That is certainly something that not every investor can offer. However, we sense in the market that this intensive support is also seen as an important success factor by other early-stage investors. You can make a lot of mistakes in the early development phase and burn money unnecessarily. Of course, despite guidance, it can happen that you do the right experiments, but then something doesn't work as expected. The risks of research remain, we can only help to minimize implementation risks and strategically position the company correctly. In this way, we accelerate the learning process and increase the chances of success. We make sure that the right and value-driving experiments are carried out with the required quality and reproducibility.”

Robert Wawrzinek emphasizes: “Cooperating with the KHAN-I team is very productive, both as regards our close collaboration in the area of corporate management and business development, where we receive a lot of support, and the feedback on our scientific strategy and the experimental plan. The proximity to the experienced KHAN-I scientific team is certainly helpful, as is the network that KHAN-I opens up for us. The enthusiasm to drive our project forward together is particularly remarkable. Short and efficient communication channels and the hands-on mentality also make many things easier for us. You can tell that our partners enjoy building the company with us, that it's okay to steer the company through rough waters together. I never have the feeling that we are being left alone.”

Proof of concept and validation

Cutanos recently delivered the first successful proof-of-concept for its approach in an in vivo cancer model, which will serve as the basis for a larger financing round in 2025. Additional funds for projects in the field of antiviral vaccines shall be raised from state agencies and large private foundations. In 2024, Cutanos already received an award from BARDA, a US government organization focused on pandemic prevention. This also confirms demand and the clear need for a technology for targeted immunomodulation. Interest from industry has already been aroused at an early stage and is reflected in collaborations with Pfizer and another well-known, listed biotechnology company. The next milestone is now to validate the technology for preventive vaccines and cancer therapies in defined indications in order to open up the platform to a wide range of therapies. Wawrzinek notes: “We have already been able to show that we can trigger the same immune response with our technology as a conventional mRNA platform – only with a dose that is almost a hundred times lower. This is an outstanding result. We now need to build on these results and develop the platform into a new generation of vaccines. We want to do this together with partners.”

Overcoming challenges together

The proof-of-concept at Cutanos was associated with major technical and organizational challenges. The receptor on Langerhans cells to which the ligand binds is only found in humans. Therefore, the necessary in vivo studies could not be carried out externally at professional partners. Instead, a suitable model had to be established first. At the same time, the capacity of animal facilities in Vienna is limited. The team was able to transition to state-of-the-art facilities at IST Austria, which, according to Wawrzinek, rank among the best in Europe. This high standard justifies the decision for parts of the team to regularly commute between Vienna and Klosterneuburg. Johannes Bange notes: “Due to the novelty of the approach, many tests were necessary until the right model was available and proof-of-concept experiments could begin. These are costly and time-consuming processes, which is why KHAN-I and xista Ventures invested again this summer.” He recommends that start-up projects focus on developing models within academia, rather than within the start-up. Overall, he believes that close collaboration with the academic institution where a technology originated is essential during the early stages of a spin-off. To ensure practical usability of new knowledge, it is crucial to design experiments from the outset with guaranteed reproducibility of results and to ensure the technology is at least partially validated for industrial application.

Michael Krebs also emphasizes: “We need more entrepreneurial thinking, openness and foresight at academic institutions – even if a younger generation of researchers is now growing up, one that thinks and acts differently, has less fear of contact with industry and private investors and is interested in setting up their own companies.”

About Cutanos

Cutanos GmbH is a Vienna-based spin-off of the Max Planck Society and is developing a versatile technology platform for the prevention and treatment of serious diseases. The core of the technology is a novel, modular transport system that can be used to transport active substances specifically via the skin to Langerhans cells to trigger an immune response there. This activates other immune cells, as is required for vaccines or cancer therapies. Alternatively, tolerance could also be triggered via this pathway, opening up the possibility of curing autoimmune diseases and allergies. Cutanos is financed by an international investment consortium and with support from aws, FFG and BARDA.

Additional information: https://cutanos.com/

About KHAN-I

KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I GmbH & Co KG (KHAN-I) is an early-stage life sciences venture fund with €70 million in assets under management. Our mission is to create value through collaborative partnerships with academic innovators in Europe. KHAN-I focuses on first-in-class therapies for attractive markets with a high unmet medical need. The fund is managed by Khanu Management GmbH, an experienced team of professionals with a proven track record in early-stage drug development, academic spin-offs, drug licensing and partnerships. Investors in KHAN-I are i) the European Investment Fund (EIF) with the support of InnovFin Equity and with financial support from the European Union under the Horizon 2020 funding instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) under the Investment Plan for Europe, ii) Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH (AWS with funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the Austrian Foundation for Research, Technology and Development), iii) the Max Planck Foundation, and iv) Thyssen'sche Handelsgesellschaft. In addition, KHAN-I maintains a preferred partnership with the Max Planck Society.

Additional information: https://khanu.de/

About wings4innovation

In Austria, KHAN-I subsidiary wings4innovation GmbH (w4i) has set up its own national contact point for scouting and project management. 20 research institutions from across Austria that conduct research in the life sciences have signed a framework agreement as cooperation partners with w4i and KHAN-I. At w4i, experienced experts contribute their know-how about the pharmaceutical market and their network to early-stage projects. w4i scouts and evaluates project ideas and, following approval by the w4i Advisory Board, proposes suitable projects to KHAN-I for funding. In funded projects, w4i coordinates the work packages with the involvement of the academic project sponsors on behalf of KHAN-I. As part of scouting, w4i also offers academic partners general advice on translational options of their results and hypotheses and on topics relating to industrial drug research and development.

Additional information: https://w4i.org/

In a position paper by the Austrian University Conference, the Austrian universities clearly advocate the continuation of w4i and KHAN, as this model closes a crucial gap in the Austrian science and funding landscape and creates great added value for Austria. The investment period of KHAN-I ends in 2024 and negotiations are currently underway for a further fund, KHAN-II.

Contacts for further inquiries

Cutanos:
Robert Wawrzinek
E-mail: office@cutanos.com
cutanos.com

KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I:
E-Mail: pr@lead-discovery.de
https://khanu.de/

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