Discovering Stealth Companies: Neuway Pharma from Bonn, Germany

We’re looking at Neuway Pharma, a Europe-based biotech startup,  in this edition of Sponsor Atlas series.  This branch of the blog focuses on young pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that are in early stages or stealth mode. If you haven’t already read our other blogs on stealthy new biotech startups, be sure to check them out here. 

High Level Summary of Neuway Pharma

Neuway Pharma GmbH (Neuway) is a German preclinical biotech company with an interest in gene therapy. They’re focused on innovative therapeutics for the treatment of CNS-related genetic diseases based on Neuway's proprietary Drug Delivery Technology. This technology, an engineered protein capsule also known as  EnPC®, has proven to have a high affinity for crossing the blood-brain barrier. Combining this technology with mRNA-based transcript therapy provides new treatment options with many benefits for CNS genetic diseases. 

Other basic details about Neuway Pharma

• Founded April 2014 
• Founders Dr.Heiko Manninga and Stephan Rapp
• Number of employees 1-20
• The first spin off from Life Science Inkubator (LSI GmBH) where it was supported by Wellington Partners , Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and several private shareholders.

Do they have money? 

Short answer is:  Some, but they look to be pursuing more.  

On their website they claim that, in total, they have raised €17.4 M: €9.2 M in a series A round; extended by convertible loans with €8.2 M. They’re also attending the 2021 Bioequity conference which is probably a good indicator that they’re pursuing more funding.According to Dun & Bradstreet they generated an estimated annual revenue of €646,423 in 2019[1].

What is Neuway Pharma pipeline like and who are they working with? 

As mentioned in the introduction, Neuway Pharma’s proprietary drug delivery device is a virus-free protein capsule used to deliver highly active drug substances through the blood-brain barrier to the CNS after intravenous injection.

NWP007 is one of those capsules, which was developed as a vaccine to treat multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and frequently fatal neurological disease. Treatment of PML qualifies for fast track designation in the US as well as accelerated approval of BLA. A public summary of this vaccine was released in October 2016 [2], where they stated:

“NEUWAY Pharma seeks a partner for the further global development and commercialization of NWP007. NEUWAY Pharma would be prepared to continue development of this compound up to clinical phase I/II under (co-)funding by and in collaboration with a partner in the indication “Treatment of PML”.”

They partnered with Cobra Biologics, CDMO, for the upstream manufacturing process for the production of GMP grade material of Engineered Protein Capsules using SF9 cells and subsequent baculovirus infection, not only to be used in the NWP007 vaccine, but also in conducting GLP Toxicity studies. 

Another confirmed vendor of Neuway Pharma is SciNote, an Electronic Labratory Notebook provider.  Neuway was part of a SciNote case study in this youtube video. 

In other news, Neuway Pharma also filed a European patent application on Dec 17th 2019 (published June 24th 2020 [3]) for an invention related to the virus-like particles (VLP) for the treatment of a lysosomal storage disease.  

How to get in touch with Neuway Pharma

• Neuway Pharma will be attending Bioequity Europe 2021 which runs May 17-19 2021
• Visit their website here: https://www.neuway-pharma.com/
• Visit their HQ  Address: Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
  53175, Bonn​, Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany

• Speak to their key decision makers: Dr.Oliver Ernst or Dr.Heiko Manninga. More info on them below.

Neuway Pharma Decision Makers

• Dr. Oliver Ernst is the Managing Director and COO of Neuway, but also leads Business Development, Strategic Partnering and Financing (remember, it’s a small team!). Oliver has over a decade of professional experience and has worked as the director of Intellectual Property Management for Brainlab. He holds a PhD from the Berlin Institute of Technology, with a thesis on thermo-responsive polymer surfaces for controlling cell adhesion process in microfluidic devices. His email address is listed right on their website, so check it out here. 
  
  
• Dr. Heiko Manninga is the Co-Founder, Managing Director and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Neuway, leading R&D and related partnering. He initiated several preclinical projects, established a collaboration with a major pharmaceutical partner, and acquired additional public funding to support Neuway’s research program. His email address is also listed on their website here. 
  
  
• Victoria Demina is listed as the Manager of R&D and Head of Production at Neuway. She has a Master of Science from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences. She had a long career history as a scientist, about 12 years, before settling in January of 2020 in the role she currently holds. 

Should you reach out? 

If you’re a CMO or CRO working in biologics or the preclinical/ early-stage space focusing on CNS, then you should definitely reach out. It may look like they’re quiet,  but we know they’re still active, given their planned attendance at Bioequity Europe 2021 and the SciNote Case Study webinar (above) from March 2021, in which they describe their transition to Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN).

How can I find more European biotech startups?

If you would like a simple solution for keeping an eye on drug sponsor companies like Neuway without relying on an out-of-date database and generic lists of leads each week, Zymewire is here to help. Reach out today, and stay tuned for the next installment of the Sponsor Atlas: Discovering Biotech Startups.

** photo credit of Bonn, Germany - Jonathan Kemper