Cyclana Bio Secures £5M to Transform Drug Discovery for Endometriosis
Cambridge-based biotech pioneers tissue-level approach to women's health, aiming to close the gender gap in medical innovation.
Women’s health biotech Cyclana Bio has raised £5 million in pre-seed funding to accelerate its pioneering work in developing new treatments for endometriosis, a chronic and painful condition affecting one in ten women worldwide.
The round was co-led by NfX and Eka VC, with participation from Cocoa VC, Wilbe, and several angel investors. The investment will fund the expansion of Cyclana Bio’s whole tissue-based drug discovery platform, as well as the scaling of its observational clinical trial focused on uncovering new biological targets for endometriosis therapies.
Founded in Cambridge, Cyclana Bio is rethinking how diseases in women’s health are studied and treated. The company’s platform moves beyond traditional cell-based models by using functional disease models derived from whole tissue, including donated menstrual fluid, to more accurately represent the biology of endometriosis. This approach enables the company to identify druggable targets that conventional research methods often miss.
“Our mission at Cyclana is not just to close the gender health gap but to propel women to the forefront of drug discovery,” said Dr. Léa Wenger, CEO and Co-Founder of Cyclana Bio. “We are redefining how therapies are developed — by studying disease at the level where it truly emerges: the tissue itself.”
Endometriosis, which can cause severe pain, infertility, and fatigue, remains one of the most under-researched conditions in medicine. Current treatments largely focus on hormonal or pain management and often fail to address the root biological causes of the disease.
Cyclana Bio’s research has revealed that dysregulation of the extracellular matrix (ECM), the structural network that surrounds and supports cells, plays a key role in the inflammation and tissue dysfunction seen in endometriosis. By targeting the ECM and the interactions between cells and their surrounding environment, the company hopes to open new therapeutic pathways where others have struggled.
“Our goal is not just to develop new treatments, but to change the framework of biomedical discovery itself,” added Prof. Kevin Chalut, CSO and Co-Founder. “By starting with women’s health, we’re addressing one of the greatest unmet needs in medicine. In doing so, we can reshape how chronic diseases are understood and treated.”
The funding will also enable Cyclana Bio to strengthen its AI-driven multi-scale data integration platform, designed to connect molecular, cellular, and tissue-level insights. While the company’s initial focus is endometriosis, its methodology could extend to other chronic inflammatory diseases that share similar tissue-level mechanisms.
The investment reflects growing recognition among venture capital firms of the urgent need for innovation in women’s health, an area that has historically been underfunded and underserved.
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BioFocus Newsroom