February 13, 2017
Funding will carry company through early-stage clinical trial of its precision vaccine for colorectal cancer
SAN FRANCISCO, CA and LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM–(Marketwired – Feb 13, 2017) – Treos Bio, Ltd., which is developing precision cancer immunotherapies paired to companion diagnostics, today announced it completed an $8 million funding through a group of private investors.
The investment will be used to fund the early-stage human clinical trial of Treos’ PolyPEPI™ Immunotherapy Cancer Vaccine for colorectal cancer. Based on discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the company expects to begin a first-in-man trial in 2017.
“This investment will allow Treos to begin the process of validating its precision vaccine approach to treating a variety of cancers,” said Dr. Menghis Bairu, Executive Chairman of Treos. “We believe our discovery of the mechanism of how the immune system recognizes and kills cancer cells has allowed us to overcome the main obstacles to successful development of cancer vaccines.”
Despite the promise of using immunotherapies to harness the body’s immune system to fight cancer, most of these medicines have failed at the clinical stage. The few immunotherapies that have reached the market have benefitted only a small subset of cancer patients. Treos’ understanding of the genetics that drive the immune system is allowing it to design vaccines that mount specific immune responses to combat a particular cancer.
Treos’ algorithms and databases are at the heart of its Cancer Vaccine Technology. Each cancer consists of a diverse mix of cells and each person’s immune system generates an individualized response against each specific cancer cell type. This results in extreme variabilities of interactions between people’s immune systems and their cancers. Treos’ team of scientists created algorithms to analyze billions of genes and compute patients’ immune responses against their specific types of cancer. Treos has designed vaccines to induce optimized immune responses to kill a broad mixture of cancer cells without attacking any healthy cells.
“We have been impressed with the rapid progress Treos has made in advancing its precision vaccines to the clinic,” said Gabor Illes, Partner at BXR Partners LLP., which is an investor in Treos. “We believe the approach Treos is taking can have a meaningful impact on the outcomes for patients with a variety of cancers.”
Treos has completed preclinical development of therapeutic vaccines for melanoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, glioblastoma, colorectal cancer and leukemia. Preclinical data suggest that these products will likely have low toxicity and high disease control rates. Using its companion diagnostics, the company plans to treat cancer patients who are identified as likely responders.
“Matching patients to our vaccines based on their genetic background will minimize the risk of clinical failure,” said Dr. Julianna Lisziewicz, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Treos. “At the same time, our in silico clinical trials suggest our vaccines will benefit a large patient population.”
About Treos Bio, Ltd.
Treos Bio uses computational biology to develop precision cancer immunotherapies. In contrast to presently available cancer immunotherapies, its vaccines are designed to be safe and effective in a high proportion of cancer patients, and intended for use only in patients identified by its companion diagnostic tests as likely to respond. Treos’ digital Cancer Vaccine Technology substantially decreases development time and cost and ensures a sustainable market by offering safe, effective, and affordable immunotherapies for cancer patients.
Contact
Daniel Levine
Levine Media Group
danny@levinemediagroup.com
(510) 280-5405