In the €350,000 funding round, participants included Banco Sabadell’s BStartup, Genesis Biomed, and private investors.
A cell therapy designed to prevent transplant rejection, treat autoimmune diseases, and even reduce mortality in severe COVID-19 patients — this is the unique, world-first treatment developed by Thytech, a startup founded by researchers from Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón. The company has just closed its first €350,000 investment round. The funding is led by Banco Sabadell through its BStartup Health program, with participation from Genesis Biomed and private investors.
This innovative therapy was developed by researchers from the Immuno-Regulation Laboratory at Gregorio Marañón Hospital, led by Rafael Correa Rocha and researchers Esther Bernaldo de Quirós Plaza, Marjorie Pion, and Marta Martínez Bonet. The innovation is based on the use of thyTreg cells, which have regulatory properties capable of controlling immune hyperactivation processes responsible for various severe and highly prevalent diseases.
According to Correa Rocha, “although the results are still preliminary, this strategy could open a new era in the treatment of many diseases associated with harmful inflammatory processes. By re-educating patients’ immune responses and restoring proper immune balance through thyTreg therapy, we can prevent transplant rejection and successfully treat autoimmune diseases or clinical deterioration in COVID patients.”
Albert Figueras, Deputy General Manager of Banco Sabadell, emphasized the potential impact of the treatment: “The Thytech team will use the investment received to continue developing the therapy, conduct regulatory studies, and follow the established roadmap to bring this therapy to market and to patients.”
An Innovative and Promising Therapy
Thytech’s groundbreaking approach is based on using the thymus — an organ located above the heart and typically discarded during cardiac surgery — as the source for obtaining Treg cells. Treg cells extracted from thymic tissue are isolated and activated in the laboratory, resulting in a product with excellent therapeutic properties for treating transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases, and even immune hyperactivation and cytokine storms, the main cause of death in the most severe COVID-19 patients.
Researchers are already using the therapy to prevent rejection in infant heart transplant recipients, with very positive preliminary results.
ThyTreg therapy has been successfully administered to four children at Gregorio Marañón Hospital. The first patient was a six-month-old baby who underwent a heart transplant; one year after receiving the therapy, she continues to progress favorably without any signs of rejection.
Currently focused on pediatric patients, this promising therapy opens the door to reducing the use of immunosuppressive drugs in these conditions, along with the side effects associated with their chronic use.
BStartup Closes Its Fourth BStartup Health Call with 121 Applicants
Thytech is the second formalized investment among the three startups selected in the fourth edition of BStartup Health, which received 121 applications from startups and spin-offs. This support program focuses on pre-seed and seed-stage health projects, with investment primarily aimed at validating both the technology or research and the business model.
More info: elplural.com
