Cantoni Therapeutics will be present at multiple events this month as part of our Series A fundraising activities.

Annegret Van der Aa will attend Bio-Europe in Vienna, Austria from 3-5 November.

Matthijs van Haren will attend the Drug Discovery Strategic Summit on November 19 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

In that same week, Annegret Van der Aa will join the LSX Life Sciences Week in London, including the Biotech Inv€$tival Showcase event on November 17.

Connect with us to learn more about our exciting program, developing small molecule inhibitors of NNMT as a novel non-incretin treatment option for obesity and its comorbidities.

Cantoni Therapeutics will be attending the European Obesity Drug Development Summit in Barcelona from 1-2 October 2025. We will be presenting our work on the development of small molecule inhibitors of NNMT for the treatment of obesity and its co-morbidities.

Media Release

Cantoni Therapeutics secures financing to advance novel non-incretin obesity drug into IND enabling phase

• Brabant Development Agency (BOM) and angel investor join lead investor Libertatis Ergo Holding (LEH) in providing funding, with additional financial support from Brabant Startup Fund (BSF)
• Cantoni awarded validatioNN grant from Novo Nordisk to support disease-relevant translational research on NNMT, a novel target for cardiometabolic diseases, including obesity and its comorbidities

 

OSS, Netherlands, September 16, 2025 – Cantoni Therapeutics B.V. (‘Cantoni’), a biotech company spun out from Leiden University, developing best-in-class small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), a promising target for cardiometabolic diseases, today announced the closing of additional financing to advance its lead asset into IND enabling phase for obesity and its comorbidities. In preclinical studies, Cantoni’s NNMT inhibitors have demonstrated an ability to reduce fat mass, without negatively impacting lean mass, and improve metabolic health through increased energy expenditure.

Furthermore, Cantoni was announced as winner of a Novo Nordisk validatioNN grant supporting translational research work on the mode of action of NNMT inhibition.

Annegret Van der Aa, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director at Cantoni, said: “This combined equity and loan financing, and the research grant from Novo Nordisk will help significantly as we progress towards our ultimate goal to validate NNMT as a novel target for obesity and its comorbidities in the clinic. This financial support is a strong validation of our approach, enabling us to start IND enabling studies.”

Floris Hamel, Investment Manager at BOM, commented: “Cantoni’s NNMT inhibition mechanism of action is highly differentiated from the currently approved incretin-based therapies and has the potential to become a new treatment option for obesity and its comorbidities. With the team at Cantoni bringing long-standing experience in the discovery of small molecule inhibitors of NNMT and a successful track record in drug development, we are looking forward to the next milestones ahead.”

Gerard Spanbroek, Managing Director at BSF, commented: “We believe Cantoni’s small molecule NNMT inhibitors could be a game changer for treatment of obesity and other indications. The experienced Cantoni team is already meeting milestones and is well on track to take their first NNMT inhibitor into the clinic, a first step to reaching patients.”

Rob Mayfield, Managing Director at LEH, said: “We welcome the new investors in Cantoni and are very pleased with the additional financial support provided by BSF to advance the NNMT program into IND-enabling phase. Furthermore, we highly value the support by Novo Nordisk, through the validatioNN grant, to further extend the translational research on NNMT as a novel target for cardiometabolic disease.”

About Cantoni Therapeutics B.V.

Cantoni Therapeutics B.V. is dedicated to the discovery and development of small molecule inhibitors of NNMT, a metabolic enzyme highly expressed in metabolic tissues, including the liver, adipose tissue and muscle. NNMT is an attractive drug target for cardiometabolic disease where elevated NNMT levels are correlated with obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. In diet-induced obese mice, Cantoni’s NNMT inhibitors induce a reduction in fat mass, without negatively impacting lean mass, and

improved metabolic health through increased energy expenditure rather than reduced energy intake. Furthermore, targeting the metabolic enzyme also brings opportunities in other indications; a role for NNMT has been described in the development of chronic kidney disease as well as in cancer progression.

Cantoni was founded in December 2022 as a spinout from Leiden University by scientific founders Professor Nathaniel Martin and Dr. Matthijs van Haren, scientists with an impressive track-record in discovery and optimization of small molecule drug candidates, with initial funding provided by Libertatis Ergo Holding B.V. (LEH).

About Libertatis Ergo Holding (LEH)

LEH is an independent seed investor in life science and health companies, which creates, supports and invests in startup and spinout companies connected to the activities of Leiden University.

About Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM)

Entrepreneurship is the driver of innovation. From sustainable food sources to a healthy future, climate-neutral energy, and developing promising key technologies – the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) ensures that startups playing a role in these fields get off to a flying start and grow into scaleups, that the right facilities are always available to Brabant-based companies, and that companies that aspire to go global can actually do so. Every year BOM works with dozens of companies to create this impact. BOM is an executive body of the Province of Brabant and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy.

About Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk is a leading global healthcare company, founded in 1923 and headquartered in Denmark. Our purpose is to drive change to defeat serious chronic diseases, built upon our heritage in diabetes. We do so by pioneering scientific breakthroughs, expanding access to our medicines, and working to prevent and ultimately cure disease.

Contact:

info@cantonitx.nl

Annegret Van der Aa, CEO & Executive Director

+32 473 525 648

Cantoni Therapeutics announces the Formation of Scientific Advisory Board

Leiden, The Netherlands, May 12, 2025 – Cantoni Therapeutics BV (‘Cantoni’), a preclinical-stage pharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of best-in-class small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT) for obesity and its comorbidities, today announced the establishment of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) comprising distinguished international scientific, translational and clinical leaders in metabolic diseases. The SAB, chaired by Scientific Founder Professor Nathaniel Martin, will work closely with Cantoni’s executive team to advance its potent and differentiated NNMT inhibitors through preclinical and early clinical development.

Annegret Van der Aa, PhD, CEO & Executive Director of Cantoni commented: “The establishment of this SAB marks a significant step for Cantoni Therapeutics, as we further progress our NNMT program towards patients suffering from obesity and its many comorbidities using a well-differentiated approach from the currently approved therapies.“

“I am privileged to welcome the members of our newly formed SAB, each bringing deep, internationally recognized expertise on both the pharmacology of our target as well as relevant clinical insights in the way to better treat obesity and its comorbidities. We look forward to collaborating with them as we drive our NNMT program forward”, says Matthijs van Haren, PhD, Scientific Founder and CSO of Cantoni.

Professor Nathaniel Martin, PhD, Scientific Founder of Cantoni and appointed as Chairman of the SAB added: “I am delighted to welcome Barbara, Roman, Aimo and Bruno on Cantoni’s SAB and look forward to continue supporting the company in its aim to bring their NNMT inhibitors to patients with obesity, where there is still a high unmet need for alternative therapies with improved characteristics over incretin-based therapies.”

The members of Cantoni’s Scientific Advisory Board are listed below.

Nathaniel Martin, PhD, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board

Nathaniel Martin is Professor of Biological Chemistry within the Institute of Biology Leiden at Leiden University (the Netherlands). For more than a decade Prof. Martin’s group has been at the forefront of NNMT biochemistry, pioneering the first potent and selective small molecule NNMT inhibitors. Prof. Martin has received a number of prestigious grants and awards in support of his research from the European Research Council (ERC) and the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO). To date, Prof. Martin has published 138 peer-reviewed research papers and is named inventor on 10 patents. Since 2023 Prof. Martin is also associate editor for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

Barbara Kahn, MD, MS

Dr. Barbara B. Kahn is an endocrinologist and the George Richards Minot professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (US). She is also the Vice Chair for Research Strategy in the department of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and former Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. She received the Banting Medal from the American Diabetes Association and the Gerald Aurbach Award from the Endocrine Society. In 2025, she will receive the Albert Renold Award from the American Diabetes Association and the Roy Greep Award from the Endocrine Society.  She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Roman Vangoitsenhoven, MD, PhD

Dr. Roman Vangoitsenhoven is Assistant Professor at KU (Catholic University) Leuven (Belgium) and a clinical endocrinologist at UZ (University Hospital) Leuven, with a special interest in obesity and type 2 diabetes. His research work has been awarded by the Belgian Endocrine Society with the Young Investigator Award, by the European Association for the Study of Obesity with the New Investigator Award Basic Science, and the Novo Nordisk prize for Diabetology.

Aimo Kannt, PhD

Aimo Kannt is a biochemist, pharmacologist and Professor of Translational Drug Research at Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) and Head of Drug Discovery and Preclinical Research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology. Aimo has more than 20 years of experience as a drug hunter at Sanofi and predecessor companies in R&D for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. He has made substantial contributions to unraveling the role of NNMT in disease biology and has led major programs to identify and characterize different classes of NNMT inhibitors.

Bruno Guigas, PhD

Bruno Guigas is a molecular biologist and Associate Professor at the Leiden University Medical Center (the Netherlands). His research group is focusing on immunometabolism, aiming to identify new druggable molecules and/or molecular targets involved in the immune regulation of metabolic homeostasis in the context of obesity, type 2 diabetes, MASLD/MASH and infection. Bruno is involved in several international collaborations on multidisciplinary projects dealing with metabolic disorders and has co-authored >120 publications.

 

About Cantoni Therapeutics B.V.

Cantoni Therapeutics B.V. is a private pharmaceutical company based in Leiden, the Netherlands that is dedicated to the discovery and development of NNMT inhibitors. NNMT is highly expressed in metabolic tissues including the liver, adipose tissue and muscle. NNMT is an attractive drug target for cardiometabolic disease where elevated NNMT levels are correlated with obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Furthermore, targeting the metabolic enzyme also brings opportunities in other indications: a role for NNMT has been described in the development of chronic kidney disease as well as in cancer progression, where it is believed to promote tumor aggressiveness, cancer migration, invasion, and proliferation through epigenetic changes.

 

Cantoni was founded in December 2022 by Libertatis Ergo Holding B.V. (LEH) and Scientific Founders Professor Nathaniel Martin and Dr. Matthijs van Haren, scientists with an impressive track-record in discovery and optimization of small molecule drug candidates. Cantoni’s Board of Directors consists of CEO & Executive Director Annegret Van der Aa, and Non-Executive Directors Rob Mayfield of LEH and Helmuth van Es, former founder of and executive in several companies including Galapagos, Audion Therapeutics and Citryll, where he was CEO.

 

About LEH

LEH is an independent seed investor in life science and health companies, which creates, supports and invests in startup and spinout companies connected to the activities of Leiden University, many of which are located on the Leiden Bio Science Park.

 

 

Contact:

info@cantonitx.nl

Annegret Van der Aa, CEO

+32 473 525 648

Press release SAB announcement Cantoni Tx_20250512

Cantoni Therapeutics will be present at BioEquity Europe in Bruges as part of our Series A fundraising activities. Connect with us to learn more about our exciting program, developing small molecule inhibitors of NNMT for the treatment of obesity and metabolic disease.