PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa.,
March 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Geneos
Therapeutics, a clinical stage company focused on the development
of tumor neoantigen targeted personalized immunotherapies for
cancer, announced today that it has closed its Series A1 round,
raising $12 million in financing. 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.
"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
For more information about the company and its leadership team,
visit www.geneostx.com
About Geneos Therapeutics
At Geneos Therapeutics, we believe that personalized therapies
are the future of cancer treatment. Our passion is to develop
personalized therapies to unleash the most powerful force against
cancer – your body's own immune system. Our approach using our
GT-EPIC™ platform is to target unique neoantigens (abnormal
mutations produced by cancer cells) from individual patient tumors
to develop novel and personalized treatments for cancer. We
have an experienced management team with a track record of success
in building immunotherapy-based companies.
About Liver Cancer
Globally, liver cancers are the fourth most common cause of
cancer-related death and ranked sixth in terms of annual incidence.
The rate of death from liver cancer in the U.S. has increased 43%
from 2000 to 2016 and with a 5-year survival rate of 18% for
advanced liver cancer, it is the second most deadly tumor behind
pancreatic. HCC accounts for the majority of primary liver
cancers.
About GT-EPIC™ Platform:
Geneos Therapeutics' GT-EPIC™ Neoantigen-Targeting Platform is
based on a clinically-validated DNA medicines technology
exclusively licensed from Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:
INO) for use in developing personalized, neoantigen-targeting
immunotherapies. The Inovio technology has been used extensively
and safely by Inovio Pharmaceuticals in the clinical treatment of
patients with over 2,000 patients treated and over 6,000
administrations. The GT-EPIC™ platform allows Geneos to develop
exquisitely personalized DNA-based therapies tailored to each
patient's unique tumor mutations. The platform is developed to
deliver the following key advantages: ability to drive potent and
broad T cell immune responses, capability to target an
unprecedented number of neoantigens in a single formulation, and a
rapid manufacturing turnaround time. Geneos believes that these are
three key differentiators that will drive the company, and the
oncology space, into the next generation of neoantigen targeted
immunotherapies.
This press release contains certain forward-looking
statements relating to our business, including our plans regarding
the development of tumor neoantigen targeted personalized
immunotherapies for cancer, our expectations regarding our research
and development programs, including the planned expansion and
conduct of clinical trials and the availability and timing of data
from those trials, and the use of our capital resources. Actual
events or results may differ from the expectations set forth
herein. There can be no assurance that any product candidate in
Geneos' pipeline will be successfully developed, manufactured or
commercialized, that final results of clinical trials will be
supportive of regulatory approvals required to market licensed
products, or that any of the forward-looking information provided
herein will be proven accurate. Forward-looking statements speak
only as of the date of this release, and Geneos undertakes no
obligation to update or revise these statements, except as may be
required by law.
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SOURCE Geneos Therapeutics, Inc.