the Pessac-based start-up Treefrog Therapeutics continues its exponential development

Nominated for the Neo-Aquitaine economy awards organized by “Sud Ouest”, the start-up Treefrog Therapeutics, based in Pessac, continues to move forward. The company, founded in 2018 by Maxime Feyeux and Kevin Alessandri, has become in just a few years one of the key players in medical research aimed at opening up access to cellular therapies for patients. Working more specifically on Parkinson’s disease, the Treefrog team, made up of biophysicists, biochemists and cell biologists, seeks to develop the culture of stem cells in vivo encapsulated in a “bioreactor”, thus allowing their multiplication as in a human body.

$780 million

And this year 2024 has been particularly prolific for the young company, since last April it concluded a strategic agreement worth some 780 million dollars (743 million euros) – with a first payment of 25 million dollars – with Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The American company, specializing in the creation of treatments for people affected by type 1 diabetes, has purchased a global license for C-Sterm, Treefrog’s technological platform, in order to optimize its production of cell therapy. She should also return to the capital of the start-up by the next fundraising.

Symbol of this all-round development, more than 40 people were recruited this year, bringing the workforce to more than 150 employees. In addition to the original laboratory on avenue Gustave-Eiffel, a new site has also opened its doors in Pessac, rue Thomas-Edison. Because it thinks big, Treefrog Therapeutics is also developing internationally, with a subsidiary based in Boston in the United States and a laboratory in Kobe in Japan. Still in the pre-clinical phase, the company is aiming for the first clinical trials by the end of 2026.