Sweden’s Lithea secures €851k to advance tumour-targeted therapy for childhood bone cancer
Lithea, a Lund-based company working on new ways to treat cancer by delivering medicine directly into tumours, has successfully raised €851k from its current investors to continue developing their drug delivery system and prepare its lead product, LIT1001, for clinical trials.
This follows last week’s announcement of Lithea securing a €27k planning grant from Vinnova under the Planning Grant for International Proposal 2025 programme. The funding will enable the company to prepare a proposal for the EIC Accelerator Open, focusing on its intratumoral drug-delivery platform for oncology.
“Our technology has shown very promising results in animal studies, with 92% reduction in tumor size and much lower drug levels in the rest of the body compared to standard treatment,” said Ludvig Sjöberg, CEO of Lithea AB. “This funding helps us build stronger scientific proof and move closer to testing in patients.”
The round secured by Lithea to advance its tumour-targeted drug-delivery system fits into a wider European trend of 2025 oncology and BioTech investment.
In France, Exeliom Biosciences extended its Series A by €2.85 million to accelerate cancer immunotherapy, while Swiss firms such as NUCLIDIUM AG raised €84 million for a radiopharmaceutical theranostic platform and Hedera Dx secured €15 million to expand its precision molecular diagnostics for oncology.
Compared with these later-stage rounds, Lithea’s smaller raise reflects its earlier development phase but also underlines investor confidence in targeted drug-delivery technologies.
Dr Deepak Raina, CTO and Co-founder of Lithea AB, added: “We’re building a platform that combines precision with flexibility. The CaS/HA system allows us to deliver cancer drugs exactly where they’re needed, and we’re excited about its potential to improve outcomes for patients with difficult-to-treat tumours.”
Founded in 2021, Lithea is a PharmaTech company focused on the development of advanced therapies for solid tumour, and with the mission to prolong the lives of cancer patients.
Their lead product LIT1001 is a small pellet filled with the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin. It’s designed to be placed directly into bone tumors, specifically targeting osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer mostly affecting children. By delivering the drug straight into the tumor, LIT1001 aims to fight cancer more effectively while reducing harmful side effects.
The product has already received special recognition from the U.S. FDA as an Orphan Drug, which helps speed up its development and approval process.
Lithea’s platform can be used with many types of cancer drugs and may eventually be applied to other common cancers like breast, lung, and prostate.
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