Overall, product development is still in an early phase with many uncertainties.
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt Viruses are the great enemy in the fight against the corona pandemic. At the same time, researchers and medical professionals are also trying to use such microorganisms as therapeutic helpers – for example as a vehicle for vaccines or gene therapies. According to some researchers, viruses could also open up new options in cancer treatment.
The Düsseldorf biotech company Abalos has now been able to equip itself with relatively generous Series A funding of 43 million euros for research into such virus-based therapeutic approaches. The financing round, which was originally set at around ten million euros, turned out to be significantly larger than initially planned because the primary investors – including the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the Gründerfonds Ruhr and the High-Tech-Gründerfonds – were joined by additional investors .
The expansion round was led by the French financial investor Seventure Partners. The venture funds Coparion, Ventura Biomed and Hx Bio Ventures were also there.
The company, which was founded in 2019, now wants to use the additional financial resources to advance its preclinical research work and to confirm the basic therapeutic concept with the first clinical tests.
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Abalos aims to use special viruses to activate patients’ immune systems against tumor cells. In terms of its basic principle, the company is following a strategy similar to that of many other players in the field of cancer immunotherapy, including various pharmaceutical companies such as Merck & Co or Roche and also, for example, the mRNA specialists Moderna and Biontech.
Specially modified pathogen
Unlike these companies, however, the start-up does not rely on cancer vaccines, cell therapies or antibodies, but on the use of a specially modified pathogen from the group of arenaviruses, the so-called lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV).
According to the company, this was specially adapted to tumor cells with the help of a procedure developed by the company founders Karl and Philipp Lang, so that it is harmless to healthy tissue, but multiplies particularly strongly in tumor cells. “It is thus able to activate both the innate and the adaptive immune system against tumor cells and could thus offer a particularly broad spectrum of activity,” says company boss Marcus Kostka. The Abalos researchers assume that the immune reaction will be directed against both primary tumors and possible metastases.
Overall, product development is still in an early phase with many uncertainties. This also includes the question of the extent to which harmful infections and side effects can actually be ruled out. After all, the group of arenaviruses also includes some dangerous pathogens.
So far, Abalos viruses have only been tested on animals. Kostka assumes that the first clinical trials with the most advanced product candidate could start in 2023.
The basic idea of using viruses against cancer is more than 100 years old. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, doctors observed that individual cancer patients recovered from their cancers after having suffered infectious diseases.
Various pharmaceutical companies, including Boehringer Ingelheim, have been testing so-called oncolytic viruses as a potential cancer therapy for a long time, but so far with only moderate success.
With these products, the principle of action is usually that the viruses themselves should destroy the tumor cells. Abalos, on the other hand, does not aim with its products to attack the tumor cells directly, but to have an indirect effect. The viruses do not kill the tumor cells, but are supposed to trigger an immune reaction against the cancer cells.
More: Cancer, lung disease, rheumatism: where the future of mRNA medicine lies – and where are the hurdles