Atriva finds series A relief

Atriva Therapeutics, a Germany-based antiviral therapy spinout from the universities of Tübingen, Justus Liebig Gießen and Münster, has raised €1.3m ($1.4m) in an initial series A tranche co-led by public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds and investment firm Meneldor.
The round also features unnamed members of Atriva’s founding and management team.
Founded in 2015, Atriva is working on next-generation antiviral drugs to combat respiratory viral infections such as influenza, in the hope of counteracting flu strains that are becoming progressively resistant to existing medicines.
Rather than confronting the virus directly, Atriva’s approach is to create so-called MEK inhibitors that deactivate a switch in the cell hosting the infection, thwarting the virus’s ability to replicate effectively.
Atriva advances the findings of researchers including Stephan Pleschka, professor in Justus Liebig University Gießen’s Institute of Medical Virology, and Stephan Ludwig, professor at University of Münster’s Institute of Molecular Virology.
The series A capital will help prepare its lead therapeutic asset, ATR-002, for clinical trials on subjects including influenza patients at high-risk of suffering complications. Atriva will seek a further series A tranche to carry ATR-002 through the phase 1 and 2 studies as well as proof-of-concept activities.
Atriva previously obtained $3.5m of seed capital in 2017 in a two-tranche round co-led by High-Tech Gründerfonds and investment firm Stichting Participatie Atriva. InSynchrony Ventures, the investment arm of contract pharmaceutical research firm InSymbiosis, participated in the round together with unspecified private investors.
Rainer Lichtenberger, co-founder and chief executive of Atriva Therapeutics, said: “This first closing is a strong show of support for our novel host-targeting approach in influenza therapy and is a very encouraging signal for the ongoing series A financing round.”