Venture capital firm Third Rock Ventures launched a US-based immuno-oncology company called Neon Therapeutics yesterday with $55m of funding provided by investors including conglomerate Access Industries.
Access and Third Rock were joined in the series A round by healthcare-focused investment holding company Clal Biotechnology Industries.
Neon will look to develop cancer treatments that target proteins called neoantigens in order to help the immune system attack tumours. Neoantigens spring from mutations caused by cancer growth, and Neon hopes that helping the immune system recognise them could be key to it taking action.
The company is launching several programmes covering therapeutic vaccines and T cell modalities, and will research both neoantigens specific to individual patients and neoantigens that span a range of patients and tumour types.
Cary Pfeffer, Neon’s interim CEO, said: “Recent advances in immuno-oncology place us at a point that is unprecedented in the history of cancer drug development. We have a completely new understanding of the immune system’s role in unlocking powerful mechanisms to induce immune attack of tumours, representing an enormous opportunity for precision therapies for cancer patients.
“These insights enable Neon Therapeutics to develop therapies that are complementary to current immunomodulatory therapies and may significantly enhance the specificity and potency of existing approaches.”