Jeito Capital co-leads the oversubscribed €78 million financing in Augustine Therapeutics to develop novel therapies for neuromuscular, cardio-metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases

/EIN News/ -- Jeito Capital co-leads the oversubscribed €78 million financing in Augustine Therapeutics to develop novel therapies for neuromuscular, cardio-metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases

• Proceeds from the financing will advance Augustine’s lead candidate, AGT-100216, through a Phase 2 proof-of-concept clinical trial in Charcot-Marie-Tooth and support significant pipeline expansion into cardio-metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases
  
  
• This investment reinforces Jeito's expertise and interest to breakthrough innovations in neurological diseases that affect large patient populations with high unmet medical needs and limited treatment options
  
  

Paris, France, March 24, 2025 – Jeito Capital (“Jeito”), a global leading independent Private Equity fund dedicated to biopharma, announced today it is co-leading an oversubscribed €77.7 million (USD 84.8 million) Series A financing round in Augustine Therapeutics (“Augustine”), a biotechnology company focused on developing new therapies for neuromuscular, neurodegenerative and cardio-metabolic diseases through the inhibition of the cytosolic Histone DeACetylase 6 (HDAC6) enzyme.

Jeito and Novo Holdings, new investors, co-led the oversubscribed total financing, joined by existing investors Asabys Partners, who led an initial €17,5 million closing in 2024, Eli Lilly and Company, AdBio Partners, V-Bio Ventures, PMV, VIB and Gemma Frisius Fund, the US-based Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) Research Foundation, and Newton Biocapital. Augustine was initially formed and seed-funded by V-Bio Ventures, AdBio Partners, VIB, PMV, and Gemma Frisius Fund.

Mehdi Ainouche, Senior Principal, and Annette Clancy, Operational Investor at Jeito Capital, will also join Augustine’s Board of Directors respectively as Board member and observer.

Founded in 2019 in Belgium, as a spin-off from the European-based excellence center VIB-KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Augustine has identified HDAC6 inhibition as a promising approach for the treatment of neuropathies and particularly Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease – a motor and sensory neuropathy that affects the peripheral nervous system, leading to progressive muscle weakness, sensory loss, deformities, and walking difficulties.
HDAC6 plays a key role in cellular processes related to tissue aging, and its pharmacological inhibition is a promising approach in a number of diseases. Augustine Therapeutics has developed a next-generation approach to selectively inhibit HDAC6 while preserving its beneficial non-catalytic functions.

Proceeds from the investment will advance Augustine’s lead candidate, AGT-100216, through a Phase 1/2 proof-of-concept clinical trial in CMT, expected to begin in 2025. The financing will also support pipeline expansion for two other programs in undisclosed neurodegenerative and cardio-metabolic indications.

Through this investment, Jeito leverages its expertise in neurology, a therapeutic area with strong potential for innovation and significant unmet needs. The quality of Augustine’s assets and team – led by Gerhard Koenig who brings more than 30 years of experience in drug development and track-record in biopharma successes – aligns with Jeito’s investment thesis of accelerating the development of groundbreaking medical innovations and unlocking companies’ potential to become future global market leaders.

Dr. Rafaèle Tordjman, MD, PhD, Founder and CEO of Jeito Capital, said:
“Through this new investment, Jeito reaffirms its interest in a cutting-edge therapeutic field, where innovation can bring transformative benefits for patients still heavily impacted by the disease. This commitment to the patients is at the core of our mission, and takes on its full meaning through this funding. We are delighted to support Augustine and share our knowledge and experience with its talented teams, to advance novel therapeutics and contribute to the development of future innovative treatments.”

Mehdi Ainouche, Senior Principal at Jeito Capital, added:
“This investment illustrates Augustine's potential for innovation in a therapeutic area where patients have limited to no treatment options. We are therefore happy to co-lead this financing to realize Augustine’s potential, which stands out for both the quality of its research and the expertise of Gerhard and his team. We look forward to our future collaboration, which shares a common ambition: to accelerate clinical development to go faster to patients.”

Gerhard Koenig, CEO Augustine Therapeutics, concluded:
“This significant financing is a testament to the innovative medicinal chemistry that Augustine was founded on, which acts via a unique mechanism of action. The therapeutic potential of HDAC6 is widely recognized in our industry, but previous drug approaches have been sub-optimal, particularly for chronic diseases. At Augustine, we believe we have solved these challenges with a novel non-hydroxamate, non-hydrazide producing chemotype which is highly selective and avoids the typical liabilities of prior chemotypes, unlocking HDAC6 inhibition as a therapeutic approach. We now look forward to rapidly advancing our lead candidate into clinical trials for the treatment of CMT, while broadening the potential for our candidates to change treatment paradigms for neurological and cardio-metabolic diseases. I would like to thank our new and existing investors for their unwavering support as we continue to advance into clinical development.”

About Jeito Capital
Jeito Capital is a global leading Private Equity fund with a patient benefit driven approach that finances and accelerates the development and growth of ground-breaking medical innovation. Jeito empowers and supports managers through its expert, integrated, multi-talented team and through the investment of significant capital to ensure the growth of companies, building market leaders in their respective therapeutic areas with accelerated patients’ access globally, especially in Europe and the United States. Jeito has built a diversified portfolio of clinical biopharmas with cutting-edge innovations addressing high unmet needs. Jeito Capital is based in Paris with a presence in Europe and the United States.
For more information, please visit www.jeito.life or follow us on LinkedIn or X.

About Augustine Therapeutics

Augustine Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the treatment of neuromuscular, neurodegenerative and cardio-metabolic diseases through its next-generation approach to selectively inhibit HDAC6. Augustine’s HDAC6 inhibitors has been purposefully designed to selectively inhibit HDAC6 while preserving its beneficial non-catalytic functions. Augustine’s lead program, AGT-100216, is the first selective HDAC6 inhibitor for long-term treatment of Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease. With its novel non-hydroxamate, non-hydrazide producing chemotype, Augustine’s HDAC6 approach is selective, avoids the limitations of other chemotypes, and built for chronic diseases. With this novel approach, the Company will also be targeting diseases beyond CMT, including neurodegenerative and cardio-metabolic diseases. Augustine Therapeutics was founded on the ground-breaking research of Prof. Ludo Van Den Bosch from the VIB-KU Leuven in Belgium.
For more information visit www.augustinetx.com.

Contacts:

Jeito Capital                                        
Rafaèle Tordjman, Founder & CEO
Jessica Fadel, EA
Tel: +33 6 33 44 25 47

Maior                                                ICR Healthcare
Stéphanie Elbaz                                Mary-Jane Elliott / Davide Salvi / Kris Lam
Tel: +33 6 46 05 08 07                        Jeito@icrhealthcare.com
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3709 5700