Biopharma Helico gets seed funding for producing edible medicines

New Zealand-based startup Biopharma Helico has completed an A$1.8 million seed funding round, attracting international interest in its plans to produce therapeutic compounds from plants and, ultimately, ‘edible medicine’. Led by Icehouse Ventures, investors included Custos Privatestiftung, the family office of Austrian billionaire Wolfgang Leitner, and existing investor David Ross. Helico has strong backing from the New Zealand Government’s Callaghan Innovation, which has bought into the deep-tech startup’s vision to replace large, expensive pharmaceutical factories with growing high-value therapeutic compounds via low-tech agriculture. The long-term aim of the startup is to develop a seed bank of different drugs able to be licensed to grow medical supplies in confined greenhouses anywhere in the world.