Nouscom has reeled in 120 million euros ($135 million) in series D funds to take a cancer-preventing vaccine through a registration-enabling clinical trial.
The funding will support development of NOUS-209, an off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy that targets tumors with mismatch repair deficiency and microsatellite instability. NOUS-209 uses two viral vectors to deliver 209 shared frameshift peptide neoantigens. The asset is designed to train the immune system to recognize and attack cancerous and precancerous cells before tumors develop.
Nouscom is developing a vaccine for Lynch syndrome (LS). People with LS, one of the most prevalent hereditary cancer syndromes, have a 50% to 80% lifetime risk of colorectal cancer, a 40% to 60% risk of endometrial cancer and an increased risk of other tumor types.
LS is estimated to affect nearly a million people in the U.S., but the syndrome is underdiagnosed and current preventive options are limited. Nouscom has identified off-the-shelf immunotherapies as a modality capable of intercepting and preventing cancer in LS patients.
The Swiss biotech shared evidence to support its hypothesis alongside the financing round. All evaluable LS carriers who received the cancer vaccine in a phase 1b/2 trial were free from advanced adenomas and colorectal cancer. Nouscom has one-year data on 43 patients and two-year data on 17 participants.
Comparing the data to the expected cancer incidence in LS carriers, the biotech said the trial generated an encouraging signal of durable clinical activity. The study also generated evidence of broad, potent and durable anti-neoantigen T-cell responses. Annual retreatment enhanced the T-cell responses.
An investor syndicate co-led by M Ventures and Revelation Partners has bet on the program. New Nouscom investors Angelini Industries, the European Investment Bank and Italian VC firm Neva SGR participated in the series D round, as did existing backers including 5AM Ventures and Andera Partners. Basel-based Nouscom will use the money to run a global, registration-enabling clinical trial for cancer interception in LS carriers.
The investment is a show of faith in cancer vaccines, a modality with a long and largely unsuccessful history. Merck & Co. and Moderna recently raised expectations for the space with their phase 3 melanoma data, although Nouscom’s approach differs from that of its big-name counterparts.
Merck and Moderna tailor the composition of their vaccines to each patient’s tumor. Nouscom, in contrast, is developing an off-the-shelf candidate that targets shared neoantigens generated through the accumulation of genetic mutations. Analyses of LS patients have found recurrent and shared neoantigens across different individuals.
Nouscom’s pipeline includes a personalized program. However, the off-the-shelf vaccine candidate has been a priority throughout the biotech’s decade-long history, with the 42 million euro financing round it raised in 2017 earmarked for taking NOUS-209 into the clinic.