Dutch Biotech Raises $19M to Develop Psoriasis Drug Near San Diego

Solana Beach, CA

Escalier Biosciences BV, a biotech developing drugs for psoriasis and other autoimmune disorders, said it has raised $19 million in a Series B financing led by Forbion, a Dutch life sciences investor. Another Dutch investor, BioGeneration Ventures, and New York-based New Science Ventures joined the round, according to a statement from the company.

While Escalier Biosciences BV is based in the Netherlands, the company is managed by its subsidiary, Escalier Biosciences, based near San Diego in coastal Encinitas, CA, according to Chris Krueger, Escalier’s chief business officer. The Dutch biotech and its Encinitas subsidiary were both founded in 2016, but the founders (including CEO Raju Mohan) work in Encinitas and “the BV piece is much more virtual,” Krueger said Wednesday.

The founders sold a previous company, Akarna Therapeutics, to Allergan in 2016, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

Escalier’s drug targets a receptor that regulates inflammatory proteins associated with psoriasis. The company says its approach could also apply to other autoimmune disorders such as psoriatic arthritis, lupus, and inflammatory bowel disease. Escalier plans to use the proceeds to advance both a topical psoriasis treatment and oral drug from pre-clinical development through the completion of human proof-of-concept trials. The company, which has about six employees in the United States and Europe, said it plans to begin testing its topical compound in clinical trials later this year.

A spokeswoman for Escalier said the company has not disclosed any prior funding.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.