Amsterdam-based cancer vaccine biotech startup CimCure raises €5M

Amsterdam-based CimCure, a biotech company developing vaccine-based cancer immunotherapy, announced on Tuesday that it has raised a little over €5M in a Seed round of funding.

CimCure was founded in 2016 as a spin-off from Amsterdam UMC’s TTO Innovation Exchange Amsterdam. The startup focuses on the design and development of a novel class of active cancer immunotherapies.

CimCure’s vaccine-based immunotherapy

Led by Prof. Dr Arjan Griffioen and Diederik Engbersen, CimCure’s founders have extensive experience in the biotech industry and started the company to commercialise a smart, effective and safe treatment strategy against all types of solid tumours at all stages.

CimCure develops cancer vaccines through its proprietary Immune-Boost (iBoost) technology of targeted conjugate vaccines. The company has discovered particular targets in the vasculature of tumours. Eradication of tumour blood vessels and inhibition of their growth will lead to inhibition of cancer growth.

This is an ‘attractive’ approach to cancer therapy. Due to interference in tumour-produced growth factors or their receptors, angiostatic medications in the past and present have been reported to cause fast development of drug resistance and loss of efficacy. 

And this is where CimCure looks to make a difference.

The company’s approach directly targets the tumour blood vessels, which efficiently attenuates tumour growth directly and does not induce resistance. An additional advantage of targeting blood vessels is that the barrier function of the tumour vasculature for leukocytes can be overcome (Huinen et al, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 2021).

Earlier in March 2022, CimCure was awarded with a €2.2M Eurostars project by the EU  for a consortium with partners in Switzerland and France. In this project, a combination therapy will be developed from CimCure’s iBoost vaccines and CAR T cells against glioblastoma.

Capital utilisation

The vaccine-based immunotherapy developed by the team of Prof. Dr Arjan Griffioen at the Amsterdam UMC, and licensed to CimCure, has shown high effectiveness and safety, both in murine animal models and in an efficacy study in client-owned dogs with spontaneous bladder cancer.

With this raised capital, CimCure will further advance its vaccine till phase 1-2 clinical studies in humans. Dutch vaccine CDMO Intravacc will be CimCure’s partner for the development and production of the lead compound.

CimCure’s CEO, Diederik Engbersen, says, “We are pleased with this funding round led by Positron and supported by Tom Wurdinger. Our first promising findings with murine animal models and client-owned dogs have recently been published in Nature Communications, bolstering our commitment to advance our technology and therapy towards clinical trials and cancer patients globally over the coming years.”

Investors in this round

The round was led by Dutch company Positron Ventures. It is a €75m (pre-)Seed fund for European science startups that tackle the world’s biggest challenges. Its initial ticket size ranges from €250K to €3M and maximum exposure to a single portfolio company is €8M.

Joseph Peeraer, founding partner of Positron, says, “We feel privileged to be able to invest in this promising iBoost technology and vaccine-based cancer immunotherapy, which might become a real game-changer in the fight against cancer. This investment exemplifies our thesis to invest at an early stage in outstanding scientists who would like to bring potentially groundbreaking and impactful innovation to the market. Professor Griffioen’s invention may lead to much less demanding, cheaper and more effective cancer treatment.”

The Seed investment was also supported by several investors with deep industry knowledge, including the investment vehicle of Tom Wurdinger, professor at Amsterdam UMC.

Innovation Exchange Amsterdam UMC (IXA) is a network, servicedesk and liaison organisation for Amsterdam UMC. It offers researchers the expertise of grant advisers, business developers and legal experts to help determine a valorisation/ impact strategy. IXA assists in setting up collaborations with third parties and/or starting new ventures while managing intellectual property and other legal and financial support.