The seed financing was co-led by Novo Holdings, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Industrifonden.
The funds will be used to further develop off-the-shelf and personalized therapy programs for multiple oncology indications, states the company in a press release.
“The support we have received from such a strong syndicate of life science investors, is a strong endorsement to the potential of our TrojanDC technology. The financing will enable us to expand our pipeline of preclinical assets and build on our commitment to making personalized cancer immunotherapies optimized to each unique patient,” says Cristiana Pires, CEO, Asgard Therapeutics.
TrojanDC
Asgard is developing a cancer immunotherapy approach, based on its TrojanDC technology, to reinstate cancer immunogenicity. TrojanDC is a gene therapy that reprograms cancer cells into type-1 conventional dendritic cells, allowing the presentation of their own antigens to the immune system, thereby eliciting potent anti-cancer immune responses. Designed as an off-the-shelf gene therapy, TrojanDC induces a personalized immune response, and overcomes many of the logistic and manufacturing hurdles of conventional cell-based therapies.
Exciting opportunities to merge the fields of cell reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy
“We are very pleased to co-lead this financing and support the translation of the founders’ scientific research at Lund University. While reprogramming approaches have been mainly restricted to regenerative medicine, the work of Filipe, Cristiana, Fábio and their team opens exciting opportunities to merge the fields of cell reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy that can be applied to several cancers, representing a platform technology with enormous potential. We look forward to working with the Asgard team as they pioneer a new generation of cancer immunotherapy,” says João Ribas from Novo Seeds.
Photo of the founders of Asgard Therapeutics, from left: Fábio Rosa PhD, Cristiana Pires PhD and professor Filipe Pereira. Photographer: SmiLe Incubator
