On March 3, 2021 Geneos Therapeutics, a clinical stage company focused on the development of tumor neoantigen targeted personalized immunotherapies for cancer, reported that it has closed its Series A1 round, raising $12 million in financing (Press release, Geneos Therapeutics, MAR 3, 2021, View Source [SID1234576037]). The financing was led by Korea Investment Partners (KIP) – Global Bio Fund with strong participation from all existing Series A investors including, notably, Santé Ventures and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: INO). The new investment follows the previously announced initial financing of $10.5 million in February 2019. In conjunction with the financing, Mr. Sangwoo Lee, Managing Director Korea Investment Partners – USA Inc. joined Geneos’ Board of Directors.
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"Geneos has made great strides in advancing the novel and differentiated GT-EPIC platform for personalized cancer treatments," commented Mr. Lee. "KIP is pleased to join the company’s investment syndicate and help support the team with its development plans."
The proceeds will be used for the expansion of the company’s GT-30 Phase Ib/IIa clinical trial evaluating its personalized neoantigen-targeting vaccine, GNOS-PV02, for treating patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a type of liver cancer. GNOS-PV02, which is based on Geneos’ proprietary GT-EPIC platform, is a tumor-specific DNA plasmid product designed and manufactured for each patient based on their unique tumor mutations’ (neoantigens), identified by sequencing each patient’s tumor. In the trial, GNOS-PV02 is combined with a DNA plasmid encoded cytokine immunomodulator IL-12 (INO-9012) and PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor (pembrolizumab). Geneos has amended the trial protocol to expand enrollment from the initial 12 patients to 24 patients.
"The Series A1 financing demonstrates our investors’ confidence in the GT-EPIC platform to design and manufacture patient-specific personalized cancer vaccines," said Dr. Niranjan Y. Sardesai, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Geneos Therapeutics. "Over the past two years we have demonstrated feasibility of the approach as a treatment modality – notably, the rapid biopsy to treatment turnaround time, which is so crucial when treating advanced cancer patients. This financing will allow us to expand our GT-30 clinical trial to a larger number of patients which we estimate will be sufficient to demonstrate efficacy in the 2nd line setting."
The company also announced the expansion of its management team with the addition of leadership team members who collectively bring decades of biopharmaceutical development expertise across early and late-stage clinical programs and pharma/biotech partnering. Joining the company’s leadership team are:
Ms. Joann Peters as Vice President, Clinical and Business Operations
Dr. Alfredo Perales-Puchalt, MD, Ph.D as Vice President, Research & Development
Dr. Hakim Hammach, Ph.D, MBA as Vice President, Business Development
Ms. Federica O’Brien as Strategic Finance Consultant/CFO