US-based immuno-oncology therapy developer Geneos Therapeutics closed its series A1 round at $12m yesterday, raising the cash from a consortium including biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals.
The round was led by venture capital firm Korea Investment Partners’ Global Bio Fund with participation from all the company’s series A investors. It had raised $10.5m from Inovio and VC firm Santé Ventures in early 2019.
Geneos was spun off by Inovio to develop personalised therapies treatments for cancer based on each patient’s own tumour mutations. The latest funding will support a phase 1b/2a clinical trial for a potential vaccine for liver cancer.
Niranjan Y. Sardesai, founder and CEO of Geneos, said: “Over the past two years we have demonstrated feasibility of the approach as a treatment modality – notably, the rapid biopsy to treatment turnaround time, which is so crucial when treating advanced cancer patients.
“This financing will allow us to expand our GT-30 clinical trial to a larger number of patients which we estimate will be sufficient to demonstrate efficacy in the second line setting.”
