Nouscom Concludes Successful Series A Financing of EUR 12 Million

BASEL, Switzerland, May 17, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Nouscom announced today that it has closed a EUR 12 million Series A financing co-led by LSP and Versant Ventures. The funds will be used to support discovery and development of personalized cancer vaccines and tumor selective oncolytic viruses.

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"We are pleased to partner with investors who support the development of a new immuno-oncology company. We have developed know-how and IP that puts Nouscom in a unique position to bring new new life-changing immunotherapeutic vaccines to cancer patients", said Riccardo Cortese M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and President of Nouscom.

Nouscom's technology focuses on viral vectors and oncolytic viruses, which infect and kill tumor cells and stimulate an immune response against cancer cells throughout the body.  It has two product candidates, the Endovax and Exovax programs. Endovax, an antigenless vaccine, is based on oncolytic viruses capable of infecting and replicating only in cancer cells and causing immunogenic cell death, thereby recruiting T cells at the tumor site and reactivating T cells exhausted in the tumor micro-environment. Exovax is a personalized patient specific vaccine, based on viral vectors coding for strings of cancer neoantigens to induce and expand cancer and patient specific T cells.  

Nouscom Director Dr. Joachim (JR) Rothe says: "Personalized cancer vaccines and oncolytic "antigenless" vaccines have the potential to converge into a protocol of oncolytic virus prime- and personalized vaccine boost for maximum sustained effect."

"The Nouscom platform offers an innovative approach to cancer vaccines that is versatile, powerful and scalable," said Guido Magni, Partner at Versant Ventures.  "Further, since we backed this same team at Okairos, we know the members' skill level, dedication and ability to build a successful company."

About Nouscom

The Founders of Nouscom are a well established team that has worked together for many years in previous successful enterprises, including IRBM/Merck and Okairos, and are veterans in the field of oncolytic and genetic vaccines. The company is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland and has operations in Rome, Italy. For more information on Nouscom, please visit the company's website at http://www.nouscom.com

About LSP

LSP (Life Sciences Partners) is a leading independent European investment firm, providing financing for private and public life-science companies. With over EUR 1 billion of investment capital raised to date and offices in Amsterdam, Munich and Boston, LSP is one of Europe's largest and most experienced specialist life-science investors. For more information, please visit http://www.lspvc.com.

About Versant Ventures  

Versant Ventures is a leading global healthcare investment firm committed to helping exceptional entrepreneurs build the next generation of great healthcare companies. With $1.9 billion under management and offices in North America and Europe, Versant has built a team with deep investment, operating, and scientific expertise that enables a hands-on approach to company building.  Since the firm's founding in 1999, nearly 50 Versant companies have achieved successful acquisitions or IPOs. For more information, please visit http://www.versantventures.com