Stimunity raises a 2M€ seed investment

This seed investment will help Stimunity to complete the preclinical package and advance the development of the manufacturing of STING-activating virus-like particles to pharmaceutical grade. Dr. Ian B. Walters, board member of Portage, will be chairing Stimunity’s Board of Directors.

“We are very excited by our collaboration with Portage; it not only brings significant investment to the table, but also provides strong expertise in immuno-oncology and clinical development. We are happy to welcome Ian onto our board”

says Sylvain Carlioz, co-founder and CEO of Stimunity.

Portage is actively investing in promising companies that have the potential to be a game changer in the immunotherapy field.

“The collaboration between Stimunity and Portage opens another chapter for Portage, providing the company with a program advancing into human testing. Stimunity’s technology has the potential to stimulate the tumor microenvironment and promote an immune response in a safer and more potent fashion than other STING agonists. We believe these properties will enable Stimunity’s STING agonists to become an important adjuvant to checkpoint inhibitors in non-immunogenic tumor types”

says Greg Bailey, Chairman of Portage.

Today, immunotherapy in oncology is a breakthrough, providing long-term survival for patients with advanced/metastatic cancer but only effective on less than 50% of patients.

Non-responding patients fail to mount a strong immune response against their tumors, and there is a major need for new treatments that activate such response. The lead program is now at the early phase of preclinical stage validation and will need an additional 2 years to get into the clinic.

Nicolas Manel, co-founder, inventor, and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board is very confident:

“Early in vivo data shows that our approach synergizes with immune checkpoint therapies and leads to a potent therapeutic effect on distant tumors which is what most of patients need"