From Science City to the stars. Cancer start-up grows out of innovation district

The highly promising biotech start-up Adcendo is one of the first companies to move out of Copenhagen Science City and into ‘Science City-partner Symbions’ new location “Fuglebakken”. The company stays within easy cycling distance of its scientific co-founders and other collaborators in the innovation district, but the move signals a need for more space in order to pursue the ambition to become a leading European developer of novel cancer treatments. The company recently announced an extension of its series A financing to 98 million… Euro. By Jes Andersen.

Moving away… But not too far

Adcendo is based on research from Science City-partners University of Copenhagen and university hospital Rigshospitalet. Launched in the innovation district in 2017 from The Finsen Laboratory, they are working on more efficient alternatives to chemotherapy. In 2021 they received the largest ever series A investment for a Danish biotech company and started growing significantly. They now move two kilometers away but still collaborate closely with labs at university and hospital.

In the early years of the company, it was crucial that our location was within walking distance of our senior scientific co-founders Niels Behrendt and Lars Engelholm. We still meet on a weekly basis, but we know each other so well now that we can easily split responsibilities. The university’s Finsen Laboratory still works to extend our biological understanding, while researchers in our own labs work on everything that will have regulatory impact”: Michael Pehl, CEO, Adcendo.

Novel three-part medication

The company is working on a new class of medicines called Antibody-Drug Conjugates. ADCs consist of three elements. One element that binds only to cells expressing a target surface receptor present in cancer. One that goes into these cells and kills them, and one that binds the two together.

Less poisonous. More efficient

Existing chemotherapy can’t be too poisonous because it goes into healthy as well as sick cells. ADC’s actively direct cell poison into sick cells, so the concentration of drug can be higher without causing side-effects. Adcendo’s first drugs-in-development bind to a receptor called uPARAP which is abundant in hard-to-treat cancers, primarily of the type known as soft-tissue sarcoma and other so-called mesenchymal types of cancer.

Our ability to direct drugs to uPARAP receptors was interesting to investors, but they especially liked us because we viewed the target uPARAP as a potential platform for multiple approaches to combat several cancer types, rather than developing a single therapy. It became increasingly clear, that we had the potential to develop drugs to fight many different cancers”: Christoffer Nielsen, PhD, General Manager & Co-founder, Adcendo.

Four candidates in pipeline

Towards the end of 2024, Adcendo expects to test their first drug-candidate in humans. Their second candidate goes to human testing in 2025 and a third and fourth are on their way through the development process. With this promising pipeline the CEO, Pehl, recently closed a 16m EUR extension of the company’s series A investment. With this, the company has raised a total of almost 100m EUR since 2021, and Pehl hopes to take the company on the stock exchange at some point in the future. “And not the one in Denmark”, he quips with a quiet smile. “The one across the Atlantic”.

Full advantage of innovation eco-system

During its start-up journey, Adcendo has enjoyed almost all the support available in Copenhagen Science City. From the university’s labs and Technology Transfer Office over the university hospitals’ collection of cancer tissue samples to the incubator BioInnovation Institute and its assistance in raising early-stage funding from players such as Novo Holdings and last but not least the address at Symbion’s COBIS location and now it’s Nordre Fasanvej location.

Symbion developed their new location to serve both early and later-stage biotech companies. Though Nordre Fasanvej is a couple of kilometers west of Copenhagen Science City it is a valuable addition to the innovation ecosystem’s surrounding area”: Kristoffer Klebak, Head of secretariat, Copenhagen science City.

Pleasantly surprised by walkability of innovation district

Pehl, who is German, has found Copenhagen a unique location, saying that you do not often find all the relevant players and infrastructure within walking distance anywhere else in the world. He has also found it uniquely easy to recruit highly skilled specialists to the Danish Capital.

We have had to attract senior profiles who can execute on this very ambitious strategy of ours. For them, the science is the most important selling point. They all want to work on these drugs, that are the first to hold true promise for certain underserved cancer diseases. Having said that, the location in Copenhagen has also proven a very important selling point when attracting this team”: Michael Pehl, CEO, Adcendo.

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