A France-based company advancing a therapy for both solid tumours and haematologic malignancies has raised €96 million in a Series C financing round to establish clinical proof-of-concept for its lead antibody molecule. ImCheck Therapeutics SAS is located in Marseille and supported by a large group of investors including Andera Partners, Earlybird Venture and a philanthropy fund managed by the US Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Two French companies have joined forces to co-develop manufacturing technologies for AAV-based gene therapies. Coave Therapeutics is to contribute its expertise on viral vectors to the collaboration, while ABL, a contract development and manufacturing organisation, will provide production skills and laboratory space in Lyon.
New data for Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy to be approved for a cancer, have shown durable remission and long-term survival for the children and young adults treated with the therapy. The developer, Novartis, presented the data at the 2022 European Hematology Association Hybrid Congress on 12 June.
Interim results from a Phase 3 trial of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine candidate for older adults have shown the treatment to be effective with no unexpected safety concerns, the developer GlaxoSmithKline Plc announced on 10 June. The vaccine contains a recombinant subunit prefusion RSV F glycoprotein antigen combined with an adjuvant. The adjuvant, AS01, is proprietary to GSK and is used with several of the company’s other products.
Kimmtrak (tebentafusp), a bispecific protein for the treatment of uveal melanoma, has received three more regulatory approvals on the back of clinical data showing that it extends overall survival in patients with the rare and aggressive form of melanoma. Approvals have been issued by regulatory authorities in the UK, Canada and Australia, the developer Immunocore Holdings Plc announced on 8 June. This follows approvals earlier in the year in the US and EU.
An enzyme replacement therapy for two types of Niemann-Pick disease is being recommended for marketing by the European Medicines Agency. If formally approved by the European Commission, the drug, Xenpozyme (olipudase alfa), would be the first specific treatment for the disease, which is a rare genetic metabolic disorder.
The Vienna, Austria company Proxygen GmbH has entered into a multi-year research collaboration and licensing agreement with Merck KGaA to develop molecular glue degrader therapies. This is the second collaboration involving molecular glue agents to be negotiated in recent weeks. In May, Bristol Myers Squibb Co extended a drug discovery partnership with Evotec SE to include molecular glue degraders.
A spin-out of the Dutch medical centre, Amsterdam UMC, has raised €5 million in seed funding to take a new cancer vaccine from preclinical development into human trials. CimCure BV has developed a conjugate vaccine that directly targets the tumour endothelium in order to arrest cancer growth. This reportedly unique mechanism of action was highlighted in a paper published in Nature Communications on 23 May 2022.
A syndicate of international investors has raised $75 million for Code Biotherapeutics Inc, a US company developing genetic medicines using a synthetic DNA delivery platform. The delivery technology is different from the conventional viral vector and is described by its developer as versatile and unimpaired by concerns about immunogenicity.
A Japanese company specialising in advanced therapies has received $30.3 million in Series B funding to advance a programme in tissue and organ repair. LUCA Science Inc is working on a mitochondrial replacement therapy that would restore cellular energy flow in damaged tissues and organs.