Montréal and UK-based startup Epitopea has raised $31 million USD ($43 million CAD) in what it called pre-Series A funding for the research and rollout of their cancer immunotherapies for hard-to-treat tumours.
Epitopea plans to bring their flagship RNA immunotherapies into the clinic by 2026.
New investors Investissement Québec (IQ), adMare BioInnovations, and Jonathan Milner led the round, with backing from returning investors Fonds de Solidarité FTQ, Advent Life Sciences, CTI Life Sciences, Cambridge Innovation Capital, the Harrington Discovery Institute, IRICoR, and Novateur Ventures. The round, which closed last week, brings Epitopea’s total amount raised to over $45 million USD.
Jonathan Milner is the founder and former CEO of Abcam, a Cambridge-based life sciences equipment provider.
The financing will go towards clinical development for accessible and tumour-selective RNA-based immunotherapies. The money will also help finance pre-clinical research that allows the company to develop targeted therapies.
Immunotherapy is a promising approach to cancer treatment which boosts the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells from the inside. Though it has shown remarkable results in some cancer types, the treatment is not as widely used as surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation.
“Our focused commitment to transitioning our differentiated RNA immunotherapies from the bench to the bedside is our organizational North Star,” Dr. Alan Rigby, CEO of Epitopea, wrote in an email to BetaKit.
The participation from institutional investor IQ marks a significant life-sciences investment, following a recent report from Réseau Capital that called for the establishment of a working group to boost life-science startups.
“Our support will not only promote the development of homegrown expertise in Québec, but also help drive the growth of a promising young Montréal business at the heart of the strategic life-sciences sector,” Bicha Ngo, president and CEO of Investissement Québec, said in a statement.
Epitopea plans to bring their flagship RNA immunotherapies into the clinic by 2026, Rigby said.
“This funding will allow us to accelerate our lead program into the clinic. Our teams in the UK and Montréal will be right-sized to enable this commitment while not sacrificing developing our pipeline of discovery efforts,” he added.
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Epitopea has created a cancer-targeting platform, called CryptoMap, that identifies antigens associated with troublesome tumours, called Cryptigens, found within the “junk” DNA of cancers. CryptoMap helps researchers assemble a library of Cryptigens, allowing their rapid identification and targeted therapy.
The technology was pioneered by Epitopea’s founding research partners, Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault of the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer at the Université de Montréal. Last month, the research team was awarded nearly $1.5 million CAD by Epitopea and the Quebec Consortium for Drug Discovery to identify new Cryptigens associated with lung and ovarian cancers. They hope to develop anticancer RNA-based vaccines to target these notoriously deadly forms of cancer.
Epitopea’s team uses RNA-based immunotherapies, which have gained traction since the development of the mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine in 2020. RNA-based immunotherapies use the genetic information of the tumour to help train the immune system to recognize and fight it.
The company operates two sister offices, one out of Montréal and the other out of Cambridge, UK, which has opened up the investor pool to overseas players.
“Our transatlantic syndicate members are well recognized, highly supportive, long-term investors interested in supporting ‘pioneering’ research capable of transforming disease biology within their respective ecosystems,” Rigby said.
Feature image courtesy Epitopea.
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