The financing was co-led by new investors DRW Venture Capital LLC, headquartered in Chicago, and Tolmar International Ltd., based in Dublin, Ireland, which together contributed more than €9 million. The remaining financing was funded by existing DelSiTech shareholders.
Lasse Leino, chief executive officer at DelSiTech, said: “We welcome DRW and Tolmar to DelSiTech as new investors and strategic partners at an important time of growth and development.
“This financing marks a significant milestone on our journey as one of the world’s leading drug delivery technology providers, with an attractive internal pipeline of controlled release drug products based on Silica Matrix.
“This investment, together with our increasing revenues from our drug development, will help us to reach our strategic business goals and objectives over the next couple of years, as we continue to address high unmet clinical and commercial needs for the benefit of patients.”
The proceeds from the financing will be used to further build the company and advance its unique, in-house, silica-based, drug delivery technology platform into clinical development, as well as expand its in-house manufacturing capability to support the development programs of multiple partners.
David Nelson, partner at DRW, commented: “We have seen the tremendous importance of strengthening our world’s capabilities to bring new treatments online to address viruses and diseases. We have been impressed by the work DelSiTech is doing in this area and by the innovative technologies its team has developed, and we are pleased to join this round to help them accelerate this work.”
Anil D'Souza is president and chief executive officer of Tolmar and said the investment would further advance Tolmar's overall business strategy to develop therapies for the benefit of patients around the globe.
He said: “In addition, we are confident that this investment will lead to profitable growth by further leveraging DelSiTech’s differentiated technology platform.”
DelSiTech has developed a drug delivery technology based on a biodegradable Silica (SiO2) Matrix into which an active substance is embedded.
DelSiTech Silica Matrix is formed in an aqueous solution by the polymerization of alkoxysilanes, Si(OR)4, using a technique known as the sol-gel process. The resulting silica matrix is porous at the nanoscale and contains a varying number of OH groups and water.
By changing the manufacturing process parameters, the company has made it possible to vary the number of OH groups and specific surface area (from a dense gel to highly porous), both influencing the biodegradation rate of silica.
When silica gel comes into contact with body fluids, the matrix is slowly dissolved. The dissolution of the matrix takes place mainly through an erosion mechanism. The biodegradation process does not change the pH within silica gel nor in the surrounding tissue in contrast to most commonly used alternative drug delivery matrices.
