UCL spin-out raises $70M for Phase III cancer vaccine trial

Funding

University College London spin-out BioVex Inc has closed its sixth private funding rounding at $70 million, providing the means to take its lead cancer vaccine through a Phase III trial.

This is a further $30 million on top of the $40 million announced in March. The second close placement was co-led by Morningside Venture, Ventech and MVM Life Science Partners who were joined by other new investors including Sectoral Asset Management and Ysios Capital Partners. Reenie McCarthy for Morningside, Mounia Chaoui of Ventech and Steve Reeders of MVM Life Science Partners will join the BioVex board of directors.

“Securing this financing is a significant milestone that puts BioVex in a strong financial position to complete its first pivotal study with OncoVEX in metastatic melanoma, with a view to submitting a Biologics License Application filing in mid 2011,” said Philip Astley-Sparke, President and CEO of BioVex.

“We believe this over-subscribed funding round is the largest for a private clinical stage biotech company this year and is a validation of our clinical and regulatory achievements. We have generated encouraging data in four tumour types and beyond melanoma have agreed to an additional Phase III pivotal protocol with the FDA under the Special Protocol Assessment procedure in head and neck cancer.”

OncoVEXGM-CSF is a first-in-class oncolytic (cancer destroying) virus, that works by replicating and spreading within solid tumours, leaving healthy cells unaffected. This causes cancer cell death and at the same time stimulates the immune system to destroy un-infected metastatic deposits.

The product is based on a modified herpes simplex virus with a single gene deletion that renders the virus harmless to normal cells, while still being able to replicate in, and kill, cancer cells. It carries the gene for granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, which prompts the immune system to destroy metastases.

Both the oncolytic and immune activation modes of action have been clearly validated in the clinic. Many patients who had metastatic disease that was progressing at the point they were enrolled in the trial have been declared disease free. Previous clinical trials have enrolled patients with breast cancer, melanoma, head and neck cancer and pancreatic cancer, with indications of clinical activity being observed in each.

The Phase III study in metastatic melanoma began recently following the achievement of an unprecedented proportion of durable complete remissions in a Phase II study using OncoVEXGM-CSF as a stand alone therapy.

BioVex’s second programme, a vaccine for genital herpes, ImmunoVEXHSV2, which provides complete protection in animal models of the disease, has approval to enter the clinic in the UK.

BioVex was spun-out of UCL in 1999 but moved its headquarters to the US in 2005 to enable it to tap the financial markets there. However, it failed to get an initial public offering away in 2006. The company’s R&D operations remains at its former headquarters near Oxford, UK.