Cancer biotech Nouscom adds €120m, and other financings
Swiss biotech Nouscom has closed a €120 million ($135 million) fourth-round financing for a vaccine to protect people with a genetic predisposition to develop cancers through a pivotal clinical trial.
The immunotherapy, NOUS-209, is an off-the-shelf neoantigen-based vaccine designed for people who carry genetic mutations for Lynch syndrome (LS), an inherited condition that significantly raises the lifetime risk of developing several types of cancer, most notably colorectal and endometrial cancer, to around 80%.
These cancers can occur in up to 50% of people with LS, compared to around 2% of the general population, according to Basel-based Nouscom. In addition, up to a quarter develop urothelial cancer, compared to 1% to 2% of the general population, and it can also lead to an elevated risk of various other solid tumours, including ovarian, gastrointestinal, brain, and some skin cancers.
LS affects an estimated 1.1-1.2 million people in the US, but most of them – as many as 95% by some estimates – do not know they have it because genetic testing is rarely carried out unless there is a family history of early-onset cancers.
NOUS-209 targets tumours that have mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR) and microsatellite instability (MSI) mutations and express frameshift peptide (FSP) neoantigens, which are unique to the cancerous cells and absent in healthy cells.
New data on the vaccine from a phase 1b/2 clinical trial is due to be presented at the forthcoming ESMO cancer congress due to start later this week in Madrid, Spain, and showed that LS carriers dosed with NOUS-209 remained free of advanced adenomas and colorectal cancer, as determined by colonoscopy, after follow-up extending from one to two years.
The Series D financing was led by M Ventures and Revelation Partners, with new investors Angelini Industries, the European Investment Bank, and Neva SGR, along with participation from all existing investors.
Other venture rounds
Soufflé Therapeutics raised $135 million in Series B financing that will be used to start clinical trials of three lead programmes in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), heart failure, and muscle and metabolic disorders, and advance others into preclinical development.
The Boston, US-based biotech – set up by Moderna co-founder Robert Langer and his daughter Susan Langer – has been built around a drug discovery engine, REMEDY, that enables cell-specific ligands that can be used to deliver oligonucleotide therapies, such as siRNA candidates, outside the liver.
Gene therapy specialist Estuary Biotherapeutics emerged from the shadows with $103 million in seed and Series A funding from a group of investors led by RA Capital Management. The cash will be used for clinical trials of two therapies – EST-201 and EST-101 – that are being developed for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), the most common inherited kidney disease.
Other investors in the Yale University spinout, based in Menlo Park, California, and Newton, Massachusetts, included Deep Track Capital, Biogen New Ventures, UPMC Enterprises, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, the National Kidney Foundation Innovation Fund, a family office connected to an individual living with ADPKD, 4BIO Capital, and GV.
Cambridge, UK-based Microbiotica, which is developing a pipeline of orally-dosed, precision microbiome medicines, completed a £36 million ($48 million) Series C financing led by British Business Bank, with participation from Tencent, IP Group, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Flerie Invest, and Seventure Partners.
The spinout from the Wellcome Sanger Institute will use the new funding for phase 2 trials of lead candidate MB310, a once-daily oral therapeutic designed to promote repair of the gut epithelial barrier in people living with ulcerative colitis, the most common form of inflammatory bowel disease.
