Draper Cygnus invested US$640k in Panarum, an Argentine biotech developing nano capsules to replace the use of needles with pill-based treatments.

(Press Release) – It is quite likely that you are within the 20% of the total population that suffers from phobia to needles, or live in areas where the distribution & storage of meds are compromised due to weather or socio-economic conditions, or you are a hospital manager dealing with limited availability of qualified staff or the scarcity of rooms, or even you are an astronaut experiencing accelerated osteoporosis due to lack gravity on a space travel (well ok, not that likely).

This is the sort of relevant problems that the team of our last investment, Panarum, is committed to solve.

We are very pleased to partner with Dr. Milena Batalla and her team. She is a highly skilled, motivated and resourceful CEO, leading a well-rounded team of seasoned professionals in the pharma industry and young, brilliant scientists specialized in pharma manufacturing, nanotech and molecular bio, aiming at transforming the way protein-based therapies are administered.

No more needles, just take a pill.

They developed a recombinant fusion protein wrapped in a nano capsule that serves as a carrier to safely transport small and large therapeutic proteins through the digestive system into the bloodstream. This will allow pharma companies to replace traditional parenteral treatments with a pill.

This is a potentially paradigm shift in how drugs are manufactured, distributed and delivered with huge benefits for patients, healthcare providers, pharmas and the whole supply chain.

Panarum makes a perfect fit for our current investment thesis: a great team building a company around the convergence of state-of-the-art technologies with the potential to expand the frontier of knowledge and generate massive impact on human well-being.