Private equity fund manager and Enterprise Investment Scheme specialist Calculus Capital has invested £2.4m in a new fundraising by AIM-listed portfolio company Scancell Holdings plc. Calculus’s latest funding contributed to a total of £6.2m raised this month by Scancell.
Scancell develops therapeutic immunotherapy vaccine platforms for the treatment of cancers and the funding will be used to prepare for clinical trials for ovarian, breast cancer and melanoma vaccine programmes.
John Glencross, Calculus Capital Chief Executive, said: “Scancell is making ground-breaking advances in developing cancer treatments based on stimulating the body’s natural defence mechanism, the immune system.
“Clinical trials for Scancell’s melanoma treatment, SCIB1, based on its ImmunoBody® technology, have been extremely encouraging. We are excited to participate in this latest funding round to help prepare for further clinical trials for SCIB1 and for the first clinical trials for Scancell’s treatments for ovarian and breast cancers using the Moditope® vaccine programme.”
Scancell’s two proprietary immunotherapy-based technology platforms, ImmunoBody® and Moditope® are at important stages of development and clinical trial.
In 2017 Scancell is due to conduct a major phase II clinical trial for SCIB1’s melanoma vaccine with Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, MD Anderson, Memorial Sloan Kettering and the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado.
Scancell’s Moditope® platform and its first drug Modi-1 uses citrullinated peptides found in cancer tumours to stimulate the body’s own immune system to destroy tumour cells. Citrullination is a relatively new area of research that is quickly gaining the attention of big pharma as evidenced by Bristol Myers recent acquisition of the pre-clinical company, Padlock Therapeutics.