Valo Therapeutics Announces New Funding for Immuno-Oncology Trials

Funding to support GMP adenovirus manufacture for a first-in-human basket clinical trial in melanoma, lung cancer, and triple negative breast cancer

Oxford, UK and Helsinki, Finland, 6 February 2020: Valo Therapeutics Limited (Valo Tx), an immuno-oncology company developing tumour antigen-coated oncolytic viruses as therapeutic vaccines, today announced it had received additional funding, triggered by positive pre-clinical data, to progress its PeptiCRAd platform into first-in-human clinical trials. The in-vivo data demonstrated a synergistic improvement in tumour clearance when checkpoint inhibitors were combined with Valo Tx’s platform. 

Dr Michael Stein, CEO of Valo Tx, commented, “With our latest funding from existing investors, of EUR1.1m, we’ve now raised a total of over EUR 10m, which will enable us to further validate our platform to develop antigen-coated oncolytic viruses as therapeutic vaccines. This funding gives us a strong financial basis to progress the GMP manufacture of our lead oncolytic adenovirus using PeptiCRAd into clinical trials in Q1 2021. Our first clinical trial will target melanoma, lung cancer and triple negative breast cancer. To help translate our exceptional science into effective treatments for patients with cancer, we plan to complete a Series A by summer 2020.”

PeptiCRAd (Peptide-coated Conditionally Replicating Adenovirus) is an innovative way of combining the best features of two clinically proven cancer immunotherapy approaches, an oncolytic adenovirus and a peptide vaccine. PeptiCRAd uses immunogenic viruses as active carriers of tumour-specific peptides to direct the immune system to specifically target and kill cancer cells.

Valo’s EUR 10m funding comprises the recent EUR 1.1m from existing investors, a non-dilutive loan from The Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation (Business Finland, previously Tekes), and seed capital from private investors.

About Valo Tx

Valo Therapeutics (Helsinki and Oxford) is an immunotherapy company that is developing antigen-coated oncolytic viruses as anti-cancer therapeutic vaccines. The Valo Tx platform, PeptiCRAd (Peptide-coated Conditionally Replicating Adenovirus), was developed out of the laboratory of Professor Vincenzo Cerullo at the University of Helsinki. It turns oncolytic adenoviruses into targeted tissue specific cancer vaccines without the need to generate and manufacture multiple genetically modified viruses. The company is also developing PeptiENV, among other neoantigen strategies, in collaboration with Professor Cerullo. PeptiENV is expected to improve the therapeutic response to enveloped oncolytic viruses in the treatment of multiple forms of cancer. A film explaining the PeptiCRAd technology can be found here.