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Cancer vaccine startup NousCom has raised €42 million ($49 million). The round equips a team last seen leading Okairos to a €250 million buyout by GlaxoSmithKline to take off-the-shelf neoantigen cancer vaccine NOUS-209 into the clinic.
Basel, Switzerland-based NousCom’s near-term prospects rest on programs based on Exovax. The Exovax platform uses single adenovirus vectors that can encode for 100 or more neoantigens to create vaccines that induce development and expansion of T-cell populations, including effector memory T cells.
Like other neoantigen biotechs, NousCom is planning to combine its vaccines with checkpoint inhibitors. One thing that sets it apart is that its technology is similar to that used by Okairos to create vaccines tested in more than 4,000 people, a fact that gives that gives NousCom confidence in the safety and immunogenicity-particularly CD8 T-cell response-of its candidates as it heads into the clinic.
NousCom’s first priority...