Bicycle Therapeutics, a next generation biotherapeutics company co-founded by Sir Gregory Winter and Professor Christian Heinis, today announced that it had secured a tranched equity financing of £3.75 million to invest in selection of drug candidates using its bicyclic peptide technology platform. Current investors, Atlas Venture, Novartis Venture Fund, SR One and SV Life Sciences were joined by new investor Astellas Venture Management, the venture capital arm of Astellas Pharma.

Bicycle has developed a proprietary bicyclic peptide technology that enables the discovery of a new class of drug candidates with antibody-like selectivity and specificity that can be manufactured with economics similar to new chemical entities. The company is applying the technology to drug discovery projects in oncology, metabolic and inflammatory diseases and will also make the platform accessible for collaborative discovery with pharma partners.

Rolf Günther, CEO, said, "This financing marks our transition from technology development to drug discovery, using our bicyclic peptide libraries, high throughput screening and lead optimisation technology. We are now expanding our discovery efforts to address multiple drug target classes. We welcome Astellas Venture Management as a new strategic investor, further endorsing the potential of our platform."

Sakae Asanuma, President & CEO of Astellas Venture Management LLC, said "We are extremely excited to be part of Bicycle's promising innovation. Bicycle's unique proprietary platform technology, which generates a new modality of peptide therapeutics, has enormous potential that can benefit the entire healthcare community."

About Bicycle Therapeutics

Bicycle Therapeutics is a biotechnology company based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, U.K. developing a novel technology for the creation of a new generation of biotherapeutics which combine the desirable features of small molecules and biopharmaceuticals. Bicycle technology is based on discoveries made at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge by co-founders, Professor Christian Heinis and Sir Gregory Winter, which have been developed at the company into a robust technology platform under the leadership of Dr. John Tite (CSO). The company is funded by Atlas Venture, Novartis Venture Fund, SR One, SV Life Sciences and Astellas Venture Management. For more information visit www.bicycletherapeutics.com.