Biograil closes €20 million to replace injections with swallowable drug device

Copenhagen-based biotech Biograil has closed a €20 million funding round to push its swallowable drug-delivery device, designed to replace injections for biologic drugs, into Phase 1 clinical testing.

Verve Ventures and Megatrend Invest backed the round. High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), which led the company's seed syndicate in 2019, participated through its HTGF Opportunity growth fund. The round builds on an earlier tranche: in July 2025, Biograil announced the first close of an €8.5 million financing round led by Verve Ventures.

"We first invested in Biograil in 2019 because we saw the potential of its approach to oral drug delivery. Our participation through the HTGF Opportunity reflects our continued conviction in that potential as the company prepares for clinical development," said Anke Cassing, Principal at HTGF.

How does the device actually work?

Founded in 2019, Biograil develops its proprietary BIONDD technology to convert a large slice of the injectable pharmaceutical market into ordinary oral capsules. The mechanics matter here, because this is where the company's claim to novelty sits.

According to the company, the BIONDD device fits inside a standard double-zero or single-zero capsule — sizes patients swallow routinely. The capsule dissolves in the stomach and releases a device with a spring-loaded grabbing mechanism. That device attaches to the stomach wall and releases the medication directly into the tissue for systemic distribution. After delivery, the bio-compostable device passes safely through the GI tract.

Biograil says the platform uses a novel mechanism to deliver biologics into the stomach wall and is manufactured by injection moulding — a production method the company's R&D executives know well. The team includes entrepreneurs who have built biotech companies before, plus executives behind the world's first injection-moulded oral tablet approved by the FDA.

What does this change for patients and pharma partners?

For patients on biologic therapies, the practical question is simple: could a daily capsule replace a clinic injection? Biograil's answer is that BIONDD can carry "large market compounds" orally, improving convenience and medical benefit.

CEO Karsten Lindhardt frames the commercial angle even more broadly: "The BIONDD® technology can allow oral delivery of large market compounds for better convenience and medical benefit and, in addition, create development opportunities for new innovative combination products which may never have been feasible or attractive as conventional injectable or oral products."

That second point targets pharma business development teams. If the platform works, it doesn't just swap needles for pills on existing drugs — it opens a route to combination products that injectable or conventional oral formats couldn't support economically.

Lindhardt also highlighted the financing structure: "Excellent to see such strong support from existing internal investors and involve the HTGF Opportunity growth fund in the round. This, in combination with non-diluting funding from partnerships, will enable Biograil to continue to move our BIONDD® technology toward Phase 1 clinical studies."

The mention of non-diluting partnership money signals that pharma deals are already contributing capital alongside equity — a detail equity investors will read as validation and founders will note as a dilution-management template.

Where the €20 million goes

The company plans to spend the capital on preparation for planned Phase 1 clinical testing of BIONDD. Key milestones include completing non-clinical GLP studies and establishing a GMP manufacturing process — the two regulatory prerequisites before human trials can begin at scale.

The timeline is concrete: Biograil targets a larger financing round in 2027, effectively giving the current capital roughly two years to hit those manufacturing and safety milestones.

The investor syndicate behind the company now includes Megatrend Invest, Verve Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Eli Lilly and Co., Sanner Ventures, Evonik Venture Capital, Anobis GmbH and Roquette Ventures. The presence of Eli Lilly — a major biologics maker — in that list suggests strategic as well as financial interest in oral delivery for injectable-class drugs.

The next visible checkpoint for observers: GLP study results and GMP process qualification. Hit those, and the 2027 raise becomes a clinical-stage story rather than a preclinical bet.