Greece-based Anacalypsis Therapeutics has raised a pre-seed financing round led by Metavallon VC through its Brain Gain Fund to advance AT001, a stapled peptide targeting the LRRK2–FADD protein-protein interaction as a potential treatment for Parkinson's disease. The amount raised was not disclosed.
Metavallon VC is a Greece-based venture capital firm with more than EUR 70 million (approximately USD 77 million) under management and a portfolio of over 35 startups since 2018. The Brain Gain Fund is a dedicated EUR 5 million (approximately USD 5.5 million) pre-seed vehicle focused on Greek deep-tech and life sciences startups, university spinouts, and diaspora founders establishing research or product teams in Greece. Proceeds will fund a key in vivo efficacy study of AT001 in a preclinical model of LRRK2-associated Parkinson's disease, with the aim of establishing proof of concept and informing the asset's subsequent development path. Funds will also support Anacalypsis' broader pipeline of therapeutic and biomarker programs.
Anacalypsis was founded around research led by Hardy J. Rideout at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens showing that pathogenic LRRK2 can engage the death-adaptor protein FADD and activate neuronal cell-death signaling. AT001 is a stapled peptide designed to disrupt that protein-protein interaction rather than inhibit LRRK2 kinase activity directly.
That approach differs from the strategy pursued with Biogen and Denali Therapeutics' BIIB122, a LRRK2 kinase inhibitor that was discontinued in idiopathic Parkinson's disease after the Phase IIb LUMA study failed to meet its primary and secondary endpoints in May 2026 despite achieving more than 90% peripheral LRRK2 kinase inhibition. Anacalypsis is initially focusing AT001 on Parkinson's disease associated with pathogenic LRRK2 variants, with the new financing intended to support a key in vivo efficacy study.