The Covid-19 pandemic took the European Union by surprise, revealing the weaknesses of the Twenty-Seven in coordinating on health matters. Four years later, the lesson has been learned. Launched in 2021, Hera, the European agency designed to anticipate and respond to public health emergencies, has since been working to build a community health shield. With this objective, it announced, Monday October 7, the allocation of a budget of 20 million euros to Lyon-based Fabentech.
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Set up by the European Investment Bank, this financing is part of the Hera Invest program, worth €100 million, and intended to support companies working on the research and development of medical countermeasures to the most threatening pathogens. Fabentech thus becomes the first company to benefit from this system.
Enough to allow the French biotech, one of the few specialized in this niche market, to continue its acceleration. “We aim to launch six products in the next five years, with a target of 200 million euros in turnover in 2030”details Sébastien Iva, chairman of the management board of Fabentech. With 3 million euros in sales in 2023, the Lyonnais, which has around fifty employees, is still far from the goal, but its management wants to be confident.
Serious bites
The company fumbled for several years before finding the recipe for success. Founded in 2009 by a former Sanofi executive, Bertrand Lépine, Fabentech specialized at its launch in the development of emergency treatments against emerging infectious diseases. Its first targets: the H5N1 avian flu virus, Ebola, or even Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever.
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The young company is focusing on the production of immunotherapies based on polyclonal antibodies, a technology already proven in the manufacture of anti-venom against serious snake bites, and for which Fabentech has acquired an exclusive operating license from Sanofi . “Unlike monoclonal antibodies, which, like snipers, strike at a specific location, polyclonal antibodies act over a broader spectrum. They will therefore have a much greater chance of neutralizing the target if it mutates”explain M. Iva
The technological and industrial bet is a success, but the commercial opportunities are slim and biotech is stalling. Spotted by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, it then made a strategic shift in 2019, broadening its scope of action to bioterrorist threats. This turning point allows it to secure public orders from governments wishing to build up precautionary stocks of antidotes for their populations. “We currently have three products under development to respond to bioterrorist threats, including one which should obtain marketing authorization in 2025”says M. Iva.
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