NEW YORK – OSE Immunotherapeutics on Tuesday said it received €1.5 million ($1.6 million) in non-dilutive funding from French investment bank Bpifrance – Direction Régionale de Nantes.
OSE said it will use the R&D innovation loan to develop a companion diagnostic for its cancer vaccine Tedopi that can identify patients with HLA-A2-positive non-small cell lung cancer who can enroll in a Phase III trial of the treatment. In the trial, Nantes, France-based OSE is evaluating Tedopi as a second-line treatment in patients who have failed prior immune checkpoint inhibitor regimens.
Initial data from the Phase III Atalante 1 trial showed Tedopi improved the 12-month overall survival rate compared to chemotherapy, 46 percent versus 36 percent, respectively. Tedopi has orphan drug status in the US as a treatment for HLA-A2-positive NSCLC and personalized medicine status in the same population in Europe.
OSE is also conducting a Phase II trial, in which HLA-A2-positive metastatic NSCLC patients can receive Tedopi in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb's checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo (nivolumab), or Tedopi in combination with chemotherapy, or just chemo.