Newco Vacv Biotherapeutics Ltd. has raised $3 million in a seed round to complete preclinical development of next-generation oncolytic viruses that are engineered to overcome previous shortcomings of this modality.
Bioinvent International AB is banking an up-front payment of $25 million as part of an option and license agreement with Exelixis Inc., which aims to discover antibodies acting on new immuno-oncology targets. Further financial details were not disclosed, but the alliance entails the discovery of three novel targets and their associated antibodies, identified through Bioinvent’s F.I.R.S.T. screening platform and its n-Coder antibody library.
CDR-Life Inc. has closed a $76 million series A round to advance development of a new generation of cancer immunotherapies designed to treat solid tumors by targeting intracellular antigens that occur only in tumors, with the aim of increasing effectiveness while reducing off-target effects.
LONDON – Epsilogen Ltd. has raised £30.8 million (US$41.5 million) in an oversubscribed series B, after its lead immunoglobulin E (IgE) program delivered positive results in a phase I in advanced solid tumors. The money is to fund a phase Ib trial of the product, Mov18 IgE – the first and only IgE antibody to have made it to the clinic – in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
LONDON – Cytovation AS has raised $20 million in a series A, enabling it to expand the monotherapy arm of a phase I/II trial of its tumor membrane immunotherapy, Cypep-1, and to test it in three combination arms with the checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab).
LONDON – Cell transdifferentiation specialist Mogrify Ltd. has raised $17 million in the second close its series A, taking the round to $33 million and enabling the company to progress three cell therapy programs to the clinic.