Amakem was founded in 2010 by Dirk Leysen and Olivier Defert, whose work on the novel ‘Localized Drug Action’ platform started at Devgen, and was later in-licensed by Amakem. Jack Elands joined shortly thereafter to take the position of CEO. Amakem is based at life sciences incubator “BioVille” at the University of Hasselt and has collaborations, amongst others, with the Ophthalmology Research Center of the University Hospital Leuven on the development of Localized Drug Action based kinase inhibitors to treat serious eye conditions as well as with the University of Hasselt.

At inception, Amakem received financial backing from LRM, PMV/Vinnof and Life Science Research Partners, who invested a total of €1.5m in the Company’s seed financing round and in anticipation of Series A investment, provided a €1.5m bridge loan in March 2011. In October 2010, Amakem received a grant for €1.28m from the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT), which enabled the Company to set up a chemistry and biology team.

Amakem’s initial funding was primarily directed to demonstrating in vitro and in vivo proof of concept for the Localized Drug Action platform in eye diseases and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). Amakem’s AMA0076 targeting glaucoma and AMA0247 targeting COPD have both shown strong results in multiple relevant disease models.

In August 2011, Amakem raised €18 million from Forbion, Crédit Agricole Private Equity, Vesalius Biocapital and existing investors LRM, PMV/Vinnof and Life Sciences Research Partners to further develop its lead candidate AMA0076 currently in pre-clinical developing targeting glaucoma and broaden the pipeline in other eye diseases.