Epitopea, a Cambridge, UK- and Montreal, Canada-based transatlantic cancer immunotherapeutics company exploiting a new class of untapped tumour-specific antigens (TSAs), raised $13.6M (£10.3M) in seed funding.
Backers included Advent Life Sciences, CTI Life Sciences, Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) and Fonds de solidarité FTQ. The seed round was also supported by Novateur Ventures and the Harrington Discovery Institute/University Health Holdings.
The company intends to use the funds to build its executive team, advance further research on its new class of antigens, catalyse their translation into novel cancer immunotherapeutics, including therapeutic vaccines, cell therapies, and TCR-based biologics.
Led by Dr Jon Moore, CEO, Epitopea, and Operating Partner at Advent Life Sciences, and Dr Jon Moore, CEO, Epitopea is a transatlantic biotechnology company developing transformational immunotherapies to treat cancer by targeting a new class of antigens that are broadly shared between patients with the same cancer indication. Cryptigen™ TSAs are discovered by a proprietary approach deploying immunopetidomics, mass spectrometry, genomics, and bioinformatics, which allows the identification of conserved, aberrantly-expressed, tumour-specific antigens, hidden in cancer’s ‘junk’ DNA. These hidden Cryptigen™ TSAs have been identified by research led by Drs. Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer at Université de Montréal.
FinSMEs
25/04/2022