Company plots pivotal trial of anti-amyloid therapy in rare form of dementia, but has Alzheimer’s firmly in its sights.
Icelandic biotech Arctic Therapeutics has secured €26.5 million in an oversubscribed Series A financing round. The funding is intended to accelerate development of the company’s clinical-stage pipeline of drugs for complex conditions, including neurodegenerative diseases.
Central to Arctic’s focus is AT-001, an oral treatment targeting amyloid-induced angiopathies, which are linked to both rare hereditary dementias and common conditions like Alzheimer’s. The company claims that the drug’s mechanism, aimed at the disruption of disulfide bonds that stabilize toxic protein structures, has the potential to prevent and potentially reverse neurodegenerative damage.
“There is an emerging consensus in the scientific community regarding the benefit of anti-amyloid therapies to treat dementia, including Alzheimer’s,” Arctic’s CEO and co-founder Ivar Hakonarson told us. “Recent developments, re-enforcing this view, are evident with the FDA-approval of anti-amyloid antibodies, as well as the development of blood assays to measure amyloid-build up in the plasma that can signal the onset of Alzheimer’s later in life.”
By disrupting and dissolving harmful protein aggregates in the brain, AT-001 has shown promising results in early clinical trials. A Phase 2a study based on a mutation prevalent in Iceland yielded encouraging data – reducing stroke risks and slowing the progression of dementia – and set the stage for a pivotal Phase 2b/3 trial approved by the European Medicines Agency. While the trial will specifically address a rare condition called Hereditary Cystatin C Amyloid Angiopathy (HCCAA), the company’s broader ambitions are to extend treatment to Alzheimer’s disease and other related conditions.
“The Series A financing will fund planned studies, where the aim is to demonstrate in Alzheimer’s patients that AT-001 can prevent amyloid plaques and tau tangles from forming, in addition to dissolving plaques and tangles that have already aggregated,” added Hakonarson.
Beyond its work in neurology, Arctic is advancing AT-004, a novel treatment for inflammatory skin diseases. This candidate, scheduled for a Phase 2a trial in Europe, initially targets acne vulgaris and has potential applications in atopic dermatitis, rosacea and psoriasis.
Established in 2015 as a spin-off from the Center for Applied Genomics (CAG) at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Arctic operates a clinically certified genotyping and sequencing facility in Iceland, where it combines research in genomics with cutting-edge bioinformatics and artificial intelligence. The company was founded by CAG director Dr Hakon Hakonarson, a renowned figure in applied genomics, recognized for establishing the largest pediatric biobank and genomic database worldwide.
Investors in the Series A round include the EIC Fund, Kaldbakur, Sanos Group, Cerebrum DAO and The Lurie Family Foundation, among others. Arctic has also been included in the EIC Scaling Club, a platform designed to accelerate Europe’s most promising startups into global leaders.
“Investing in innovative solutions to address the global healthcare challenge of dementia is both a responsibility and an opportunity,” said Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board. “In Europe alone, dementia affects over ten million people – placing immense strain on families, healthcare systems, and economies. By providing an equity investment in Arctic Therapeutics, the EIC Fund is supporting groundbreaking preventive treatments that have the potential to change the trajectory of this crisis, improve quality of life, and alleviate the burden on healthcare infrastructure worldwide.”
