Start-up raises £0.5 million-plus towards hard tumour immunotherapy goal
27 Nov 2022
Start-up Neobe Therapeutics has raised £520K towards financing its endeavours to reduce barriers to immunotherapy in cancer patients with solid tumours.
The company’s equity round led by Discovery Park Ventures and Saras Capital CEO Nadav Rosenberg, aims to enable initial safety and efficacy studies of Neobe’s initial prototype, targeted at patients with certain types of refractory colorectal cancer and pancreatic cancer.
At present said the company, some 85% of patients with solid tumours do not respond to immunotherapies.
Neobe aims to counter this with programmable biotherapeutics to disrupt barriers in the microenvironment of solid tumours that are able to prevent immune infiltration.
Chairman of Discovery Park Ventures Mayer Schreiber said: “For many cancer patients their disease remains untreatable despite significant recent therapeutic advances and so we are very excited by the potential of Neobe’s novel approach to remodelling of the tumour microenvironment.
“We are impressed by the progress the co-founders Annelise and Pedro have made and are delighted to welcome Neobe Therapeutics to the Discovery Park Ventures portfolio as our fourth investment.”
Founded in 2021 by immunooncology and bacterial engineering experts Pedro Correa de Sampaio and Annelise Soulier (pictured), Neobe has predicted its products have the potential to double the number of cancer patients that respond to existing immunotherapies.
Neobe has worked with co-director of the Imperial College Centre for Synthetic Biology, Professor Geoff Baldwin, to develop genetic circuits that underpin its bacterial engineering platform.
In a collaboration with the Barts Cancer Institute, the initial efficacy studies employing a patient-derived ex vivo model are being developed by Dr. Oliver Pearce.
The two collaborators were recently awarded a prestigious from Innovate UK recently awarded Biomedical Catalyst grant, in collaboration with Dr. Pearce, to initiate development of a second product targeting patients with triple negative breast cancer.
Said de Sampaio: “We’re very excited to be initiating preclinical studies on our lead prototype product. Neobe Therapeutics wouldn’t be able to do so without the support of Innovate UK, Discovery Park Ventures, Nadav Rosenberg and our existing investors.”
