On January 5, 2023 ErVaccine Technologies, a biotech company and spin-off from the Centre Léon Bérard-Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Lyon, which develops next-generation therapeutic vaccines and cellular immunotherapies targeting "unconventional" tumor antigens, such as those derived from human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), reported the closing of a €4.5 million seed round, including dilutive and non-dilutive funds, with Seventure and Bpifrance as part of the Aide au Développement de l’Innovation (ADI) program (Press release, ErVaccine, JAN 5, 2023, View Source [SID1234629611]).

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These funds are dedicated to financing Ervaccine’s work with its development portfolio, which currently includes nine projects, two of which are in late pre-clinical development.

To prepare for the next stages of development, including the start of a clinical trial with a first vaccine candidate in 2023, Ervaccine is currently preparing a A-round of financing.

Nathalie Donne, CEO of Ervaccine, declares: "The work of Ervaccine’s teams, led by Prof. Stéphane Depil, and the support of our strategic investors, Seventure and Bpifrance, have enabled us to decisively advance our preclinical programs and bring us to the doorstep of the first clinical trials. Meanwhile, throughout the year, we published numerous non-clinical data of high scientific quality, confirming the immense potential of our technology. These publications have enabled us to make progress in our discussions with several international investors specialized in life sciences, with a view to our next stage of financing, as well as with potential industrial partners."

During the year 2022, Ervaccine obtained the publication of 3 major scientific articles in high impact factor journals.

The first article, published in January 2022 in the journal Science Advances and entitled "Identification of shared tumor epitopes from endogenous retroviruses inducing high avidity cytotoxic T cells for cancer immunotherapy", demonstrates the value of using antigens derived from endogenous human retroviruses (HERV) specifically overexpressed by tumor cells as therapeutic targets for developing new immunotherapies in cancer.

The second article was published in June 2022 in the European Journal of Cancer and entitled: "Tumor burden and antigen-specific T cell magnitude represent major parameters for clinical response to cancer vaccine and TCR-engineered T cell therapy". It shows the interest of TCR-T cell therapy approaches (T lymphocytes modified to express a T cell receptor specific to a tumour antigen) in cancers with a large tumour mass. This cell therapy could be combined with a vaccine approach to provide long-term tumour control, which would be a major advance in cancer treatment.

The third paper, published in June 2022 in the American Journal of Hematology and entitled "HERVs characterise normal and leukemia stem cells and represent a source of shared epitopes for cancer immunotherapy", shows that HERVs represent an important source of genetic information that can help improve cancer stratification and the identification of new targets and biomarkers.

Prof. Stéphane Depil, MD, PhD, founder and Executive Chairman of ErVaccine, declares: "Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are fossils of viruses that were integrated into the genome of our ancestors millions of years ago and represent about 8% of our genetic make-up. These genes are silent in normal cells but become active when cells become tumorous. ErVaccine has demonstrated that cancer cells present antigens from HERV to the immune system and has built on this discovery to develop a unique, potentially universal therapeutic vaccine technology platform. Our most advanced preclinical assets are targeting triple-negative breast cancer as the first indication. We are also considering other low mutational burden tumours such as ovarian cancer, sarcoma, glioblastoma and acute myeloid leukemia. In these indications, current checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies are proving to be of little or no benefit, and there remains a major unmet medical need. We are putting everything in place to enter the clinic next year."