NEW YORK – Nouscom on Tuesday announced it has raised €67.5 million ($72 million) in an oversubscribed Series C financing round.
Andera Partners, Bpifrance, and M Ventures co-led the financing round, and were joined by Revelation Partners, Indaco Venture Partners, Panakès Partners, and XGen Ventures. Existing investors 5AM Ventures, EQT Life Sciences, and Versant Ventures also participated in the round, as did other undisclosed investors.
The Basel, Switzerland-based firm plans to put the funds toward advancing its neoantigen cancer vaccines, including NOUS-PEV, a bespoke vaccine designed to target specific neoantigens in patients' tumors. The financing will specifically allow Nouscom to complete a Phase Ib study evaluating NOUS-PEV plus an immune checkpoint inhibitor in advanced melanoma and to test the personalized vaccine's ability to treat cancers lacking treatment options in randomized Phase II trials.
The firm is expecting a readout from a randomized Phase II trial of its off-the-shelf vaccine, NOUS-209, plus Merck's checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in patients with advanced DNA mismatch repair-deficient or microsatellite instability-high colorectal cancer. NOUS-209 targets 209 neoantigens that commonly show up in cancer patients.
Nouscom is also evaluating NOUS-209 as a potential intervention to prevent people with Lynch syndrome, who are at high risk for future cancers, from developing them. The firm said it plans to put some of the Series C proceeds toward completing a Phase Ib study of the vaccine in this population.
In tandem with the financing news, Nouscom said that representatives from Andera Partners, Bpifrance, and M Ventures have joined its board of directors.