Pfizer and Lilly join investors in biotech seeking to selectively degrade harmful protein aggregates without affecting essential monomers.
British biotech Trimtech Therapeutics has secured $31 million in seed funding to advance its pipeline of targeted protein degradation therapies for neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases. The investment will enable the company to further develop its proprietary aggregate-selective degraders, a class of CNS-penetrant therapeutics designed to address diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s.
Trimtech is focused on leveraging the unique properties of TRIM21, an E3 ubiquitin ligase expressed in most tissues, to selectively degrade disease-causing protein aggregates while preserving the native, functional forms of these proteins. The approach aims to overcome the limitations of existing targeted protein degradation technologies, which often struggle to differentiate between harmful aggregates and essential monomers. TRIM21’s activation is triggered by substrate-induced clustering, meaning it only becomes active in the presence of multimeric targets such as oligomers, aggregates or functional assemblies. Once engaged, TRIM21 rapidly ubiquitinates these targets, marking them for degradation via the ubiquitin-proteasome system.
The company’s two proprietary degrader platforms, TRIMTACs and TRIMGLUEs, have been designed to harness this mechanism. TRIMTACs are bispecific molecules that directly recruit TRIM21 to a specific target protein for degradation. TRIMGLUEs facilitate the interaction between TRIM21 and its target by exploiting cryptic mutual binding interactions, making them useful in cases where no known ligands exist for the target protein.
The oversubscribed financing round was led by Cambridge Innovation Capital and SV Health Investors’ Dementia Discovery Fund, with additional participation from M Ventures and Pfizer Ventures. Other investors include Eli Lilly and Company, MP Healthcare Venture Management, Cambridge Enterprise Ventures and Start Codon.
Trimtech CEO Nicola Thompson hailed the investment as “a great endorsement of Trimtech’s unique approach to targeting the selective removal of aggregated proteins that underpin so many CNS diseases, and recognizes our impressive scientific foundations and world class team.”
Trimtech was founded by Cambridge Innovation Capital and the Dementia Discovery Fund, alongside their entrepreneur-in-residence Damian Crowther and academic co-founders Leo James from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Will McEwan from the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. The company has also appointed several industry leaders to its Board of Directors, including representatives from Cambridge Innovation Capital, SV Health Investors, M Ventures, MP Healthcare Venture Management,and Pfizer Ventures.
“While targeted protein degradation has revolutionized drug discovery, effective clearance of protein aggregates remains a major challenge,” said SV Health’s Laurence Barker. “Trimtech’s differentiated approach directly addresses this gap, opening new possibilities for treating neurodegenerative conditions and beyond.”
“With over 55 million people affected by Alzheimer’s and millions more battling other neurodegenerative disorders, this groundbreaking innovation has the potential to transform the course of treatment for these patients,” said Cambridge Innovation Capital’s Michael Anstey.
