Leyden Labs raises €40m to fight respiratory viruses nasally

Leyden Labs, a Dutch biotechnology company developing a new class of nasal sprays to protect against respiratory viruses, has closed a €40 million funding round. The financing brings together a strong group of impact-focused investors from Europe, the United States, and Asia to support novel approaches that could better protect people worldwide against influenza and other respiratory viruses.

The company's approach is rooted in a straightforward biological insight: most vaccines and antibody therapies generate systemic immune responses, but airborne viruses enter the body through the nose and mouth. Leyden Labs is pursuing a strategy of delivering broadly protective antibodies directly to the respiratory mucosa via nasal spray, aiming to intercept viruses at the point of entry before infection can take hold. Because the antibodies are designed to work across full viral families, they are intended to remain effective even as viruses mutate and evolve. The approach also offers potential advantages for immunocompromised patients, as it does not rely on a fully functional immune response.

“This financing represents much more than capital,” said Koenraad Wiedhaup, Founder and CEO of Leyden Labs. “It signals confidence in our scientific approach, our team, and our mission to fundamentally improve how the world protects itself against respiratory viruses. The support from globally respected investors across public health and strategic innovation gives us tremendous momentum as we advance our programs through clinical development and toward global access.”

International investors

Among the investors are the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Invest-NL, the Gates Foundation, ClavystBio, and others. The EIC support came through the EIC Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP), designed to strengthen European readiness and competitiveness in biotechnology. “Leyden Labs represents the kind of breakthrough biotechnology innovation the EIC STEP Scale Up initiative was designed to support,” said Hermann Hauser, Member of the EIC Fund Board. 

Invest-NL, the Netherlands' national promotional institution, also contributed €10 millon to the round. "To turn breakthrough innovations into solutions that benefit society, companies need access to patient capital. As the national promotional institution of the Netherlands, we are pleased to support Leyden Labs in that journey," said Ineke Cazander, investment principal at Invest-NL.

Alongside the fundraising, the company announced the appointment of Ben Verwaayen to its Supervisory Board, nominated by EIC Fund and Invest-NL. Verwaayen brings decades of international leadership from senior executive and board roles across major technology companies.

Leyden Labs operates from Leiden and has an additional presence in Singapore. The new capital will fund continued clinical development of its pipeline of candidates targeting influenza, coronaviruses, and other respiratory viruses — with the goal, as the company puts it, of freeing people from the threat of respiratory disease.