U.K. biotech Circassia has the first potential cat allergy vaccine to reach advanced clinical studies in Europe and the U.S., funded by a large round of VC financing completed in 2011. Its allergen-free technology could revolutionize the treatment of allergies.

Despite the unpredictability and fluctuation of the world's financial markets last month, a surprising number of pharmaceutical companies secured private investments, and the total amount raised rose, a Scripanalysis has found.

Each month, Start-Up presents a comprehensive review of young, private life science companies that have received venture funding during the month, including companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic and research instrumentation & reagent sectors.

ImVisioN GMBH's focus is allergy immunotherapy, and it is using its platform technologies to create a pipeline of treatments for major allergies. ILIT, ImVisioN's delivery technology, allows administration of the allergen directly into the lymph nodes, which contain high concentrations of antigen-presenting cells. Its MAT technology is designed to maximize the immune protective response from T helper cell type 1 and minimize the Th2-mediated inflammatory responses.