Oxford Grows As Cancer Hotspot with New Financing Round
The UK-based biopharma company focused on the development of cancer vaccines- Oxford Vacmedix UK Limited- has now completed its Series A financing round of $12.5m (£9m), marking the first time that a UK cancer vaccines company has won funding from both South Korean and Chinese investors.
Spun out by Oxford University Innovation in 2012, OVM is commercialising research led by Dr Shisong Jiang, developed as a partnership between Oxford University’s Department of Oncology and the Medical Research Council’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, also based in Oxford.
The technology uses the novel, proprietary platform of recombinant overlapping peptides to design and develop therapeutic cancer vaccines and diagnostics with the potential for increased efficacy.
The money raised will be used to propel the company’s two lead vaccine candidates, OVM-100 and OVM-200, through preclinical development and into clinical trials.
OVM-100 is an HPV vaccine that targets cervical cancer, and OVM-200 uses survivin to target solid tumours. Both will be developed as single agents as well as in combination with immuno-oncology agents. The company will also continue its development of diagnostic kits for cellular immunity.
“We’ll be kicking off work with the contract manufacturing organisation, taking the process that’s already developed and scaling it up to get to sufficient quantities so we can actually begin treating patients with the vaccines,
” OVM director Anthony Coombs told Drug Development Technology. “When we’ve got the preclinical work and the scale up from the manufacturer, we’ll put in the application to the European Medicines Agency and hopefully start Phase I trials in the UK next year. The preclinical results for the two candidates we’ve got are really compelling. They show very convincingly a difference in survival in mouse populations and that is very encouraging in terms of moving forward…I think there is a lot of excitement that this technology could really make a difference.”William Finch, CEO and Director at OVM, said: “We are delighted to have such an experienced group of international investors support the company in this financing round. This investment will allow OVM’s cancer vaccines to be progressed to important clinical milestones both to benefit patients and to return significant shareholder value. We have already licensed our technology into Chinese market and we are also looking forward to collaborating with Cancer ROP on the development of our vaccines in the Republic of Korea.”
Shisong Jiang, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at OVM, added: “This Series A investment will allow us to further develop ROP technology – a quick and economic way to produce vaccines and diagnostics for cancer and infectious diseases. We hope our effort will eventually benefit the health of many patients.”
Wang-Jun Lee, Chairman at Cancer ROP, added: “We look forward to a productive and mutually beneficial partnership with OVM especially in global clinical trial aspects and confident that we can support the continued growth and development of the company.”
