Nec Corp. has acquired all of Vaximm AG’s neoantigen program assets. Tokyo-based Nec will conduct the acquisition via its subsidiary, Nec Oncoimmunity AS.
DUBLIN – A meaty licensing deal with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is as good a time as any to unveil a new corporate identity. Nykode Therapeutics AS, the Norwegian immunotherapy firm formerly known as Vaccibody, is banking $30 million up front, another $20 million as an equity investment, and could earn up to $875 million more in development and commercial milestones across a multiproduct deal to develop vaccines for cancer and infectious disease.
LONDON – Cancer immunotherapy specialist Valo Therapeutics Oy has raised €11 million (US$12.6 million) in an oversubscribed round that will fund the final preparations to move the lead program into the clinic at the start of 2022, and to prepare for an IPO later next year. The phase I will be the first test in humans of Valo’s Pepticrad (peptide-coated conditionally replicating adenovirus technology), which combines two different approaches for which there is there is separate clinical proof: oncolytic adenoviruses and peptide cancer vaccines.
Shares of Ultimovacs ASA (OSE:ULTI) climbed 16.6% to NOK148.60 (US$17.82) on news the FDA will expedite an eventual review of its investigational cancer vaccine, UV-1, in combination with checkpoint inhibitors for the potential treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma.
DUBLIN – Etherna Immunotherapies NV raised €34 million (US$38.2 million) in a series B funding round to progress its pipeline of mRNA-based vaccines for cancer and infectious disease.
LONDON – A veteran of the European vaccines industry has brought together three companies in three countries, in what is described as an ultra-fast-track COVID-19 vaccine development program. From a standing start less than three months ago, the three biotechs, Reithera Srl in Rome, Leukocare AG in Munich, Germany, and Univercells SA in Brussels, Belgium, have advanced to GMP manufacturing, with first-in-human studies due to start in June.
DUBLIN – Ose Immunotherapeutics SA finds itself in the difficult place of hitting the primary endpoint of the first part of a phase III trial of Tedopi, a therapeutic vaccine, in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) while having to terminate the study without completing the crucial second part.
DUBLIN – Shares in Targovax ASA rose as much as 26% Wednesday on news of an option and license agreement in China involving its peptide-based KRAS-directed cancer vaccines, TG-01 and TG-02.
Elicio Therapeutics Inc. CEO Robert Connelly acknowledged "a general malaise about cancer vaccines," but described the strategy of his firm to BioWorld as "very different. None of these other approaches [has] delivered the goods to the lymph nodes, where the immune response is orchestrated."
