Endlyz Therapeutics, Inc.

SV Health Investors, fresh off a $250 million fund for dementia-focused biotechs, has unveiled its latest effort, this time to advance new Parkinson’s disease treatments. The London-based healthcare investor launched Endlyz Therapeutics on Monday morning. The small biotech, which has quietly been in the works for nearly four years, is working on Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders by revamping the body’s cellular recycling function. The startup has raised $16 million to date from SV’s Dementia Discovery Fund, Oxford Science Enterprises, AbbVie Ventures, Parkinson’s UK and the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery at KU Leuven, according to a source familiar with the biotech’s fundraising. SV’s DDF has backed more than 20 biotechs, including Caraway Therapeutics (now owned by Merck), the late-stage Parkinson’s biotech Cerevance, and QurAlis, which has partnered with Eli Lilly. Through its investment from AbbVie’s corporate VC arm, Endlyz has now established ties with a big pharma that’s been increasingly active in neuroscience in recent years. AbbVie’s acquisitions of late include Cerevel , Aliada Therapeutics and Mitokinin . Endlyz is working on small molecule modulators of ATP13A2 and ATP10B. The polyamine and lipid transporter enzymes, respectively, are key to maintaining neuronal health. “Both targets are linked to human genetic validation, and we know that they give the right phenotypes and disease conditions that are also recapitulated in Parkinson’s disease,” Endlyz CEO and co-founder Joanna Wolak said in an interview. Caraway had a preclinical program in the ATP13A2 space when Merck bought the startup for up to $610 million in 2023. A Merck spokesperson declined to comment about the status of the program. The startup is beginning to fundraise a Series A, with a goal of getting its first candidate in the clinic in 2027, Wolak said. It’s also open to pharma collaborations and an “early exit” to an acquirer, she added. Endlyz said it’s also working with the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which gave the company a research grant to help identify biomarkers as it gets toward clinical development. Endlyz’s scientific co-founders include Wolak, KU Leuven professor Peter Vangheluwe, and University of Oxford professors Richard Wade-Martins and John Davis.