Carthera brings Series B round to €42M with additional €4.5M funding

Company welcomes first US VC, Unorthodox Ventures  

Carthera will use funds to launch first registrational trial in recurrent glioblastoma and expand pipeline in field of neurodegenerative diseases 

Paris, France, December 11, 2023 – Carthera, a spin-off from Sorbonne University founded by Pr. Alexandre Carpentier and developer of SonoCloud^®, an innovative ultrasound-based medical device to treat a wide range of brain disorders, today announces an additional €4.5M in funding to complement its Series B financing round, bringing the total raised to €42M ($45M). The company welcomes its first US-based VC, Unorthodox Ventures, further strengthening its investor pool. Existing shareholders Supernova Invest, Saint-Genys and Bouscas Med also participated.

The funding will support Carthera in launching its first registrational trial using its SonoCloud technology in the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma (rGBM). The study will be an international, multicenter, two-arm clinical trial randomized with a 1:1 ratio. The open-label, comparative pivotal trial will evaluate overall survival in patients undergoing carboplatin chemotherapy and treated with the SonoCloud-9^® system to open the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB). This will be compared to the standard of care (lomustine and temozolomide) in patients with first recurrence of GBM. 

“Carthera’s technology addresses a real problem, and we’re pleased to support the company’s work and this pivotal trial,” said Carey Smith, Founding Contrarian at Unorthodox Ventures.

“Carthera continues to show positive results in the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma with its SonoCloud device; we are therefore pleased to reinforce our support for the company through this financing round,” said Celia Hart, General Partner at Supernova Invest. “We are confident that the expertise and clinical development experience of its management team will help the company to realize its ambitious plan.”

“I am pleased to welcome Unorthodox Ventures to our investor base, it is great to see that our program continues to raise interest in the US market. I would also like to thank our historical investors for their continued support, allowing us to fulfil our mission of providing new treatment options to patients with glioblastoma and other serious brain diseases,” said Frédéric Sottilini, CEO of Carthera. 

In parallel to the clinical trial, the funds will be used to develop the company’s clinical and preclinical pipeline in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. Carthera is actively seeking to establish new research and clinical stage collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech partners interested in using its SonoCloud technology to deliver their therapies to the brain.

About SonoCloud^®

SonoCloud is an innovative medical device developed by Carthera. It emits ultrasound to temporarily increase the permeability of the blood vessels in the brain to improve the delivery of therapeutic molecules. Invented by Pr. Alexandre Carpentier and developed in collaboration with the Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound (Laboratoire Thérapie et Applications Ultrasonores, LabTAU, INSERM) in Lyon, France, SonoCloud is an implant inserted into the skull and activated prior to injection of a therapeutic agent. Several minutes of low-intensity ultrasound opens the blood-brain barrier for six hours and increases the concentration of therapeutic molecules in the brain. This ultrasound-induced opening of the blood-brain barrier is a world first; it offers a new treatment option for a wide range of indications, including brain tumors and Alzheimer’s disease.

The safety of the investigational use of SonoCloud has not yet been determined, the device has not yet received EMA or FDA approval.

About Unorthodox Ventures

Austin-based Unorthodox Ventures seeks out entrepreneurs with big potential and provides far more than money. Led by Big Ass Fans Founder Carey Smith, Unorthodox Ventures is a reinvention of the broken investment process, starting with its team of experts who help entrepreneurs by providing support for everything from engineering and marketing to customer service and logistics. 

www.UnorthodoxVentures.com

About Supernova Invest 

Supernova Invest is the leading deep tech venture capital firm in France. Its current portfolio includes 80+ impact startup companies that develop products and services leveraging breakthrough technologies in four transition-centric sectors: health, energy & environment, industry 4.0 and digital technology. For 20 years, Supernova Invest has been providing long-term capital, operating experience and strategic support to back sustainable growth for tomorrow’s deep tech and industrial champions. 

www.supernovainvest.com

About Carthera 

Carthera is a clinical-stage medtech company focused on developing innovative ultrasound-based medical devices to treat a wide range of brain disorders.

The company is a spin-off from AP-HP Paris and Sorbonne University. Carthera leverages the inventions of Pr. Alexandre Carpentier, head neurosurgeon at AP-HP Sorbonne university, who has achieved worldwide recognition for his innovative developments in treating brain disorders. Carthera is developing SonoCloud^®, an intracranial implant that temporarily opens the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB). The device is currently in clinical trials in Europe and the United States.

Founded in 2010 by Pr. Alexandre Carpentier, run by CEO Frederic Sottilini, and chaired by Oern Stuge MD, Carthera has offices in France (Lyon and Paris) and a subsidiary in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Since its inception, the technical and clinical development of SonoCloud has received support from the National Research Agency (ANR), the French public investment bank (Bpifrance), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the European Innovation Council (EIC).

www.carthera.eu