Danish start-up InProTher has raised €6 million seed funding from private investors, with participation from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund.
The financing will enable InProTher to advance its lead drug candidate, IPT001, a first-in-class immunotherapy against solid tumours, into clinical development.
Incubated at the BioInnovation Institute (BII) and seeded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, InProTher was established to develop immunotherapies designed to overcome the limitations of cancer vaccines.
InProTher is targeting the Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs) to treat cancer. HERVS are well recognised as tumour specific antigens, but until now, have been undruggable.
The company uses technology that stimulates both arms of the immune system, the humoral and the cellular response. The immunogen is delivered using adenoviral and RNA vectors.
InProTher has generated robust pre-clinical, proof-of-concept data that demonstrates therapeutic potential for multiple oncology indications including pancreatic, ovarian, breast and prostate cancer. It plans to enter first-in-human (FIH) trials in 2024.
Jordi Naval, Chief Executive Officer of InProTher, said: “Our aim is to unlock the full potential of immunotherapy in cancer. We believe InProTher can solve the limitations of current cancer vaccines, as our pre-clinical data has shown that our immunotherapy induces higher tumour control, survival rate and tumour efficacy, compared to other competing approaches.”
