Valo Therapeutics has successfully raised 11 million EUR in an oversubscribed Pre-IPO funding round.

The Pre-IPO fund included participation from existing investors, Freeman Road, and new investors, including ASX-listed MMJ Group Holdings. The total raised to date is now over Euro 22 million (around USD 25.5 million).

“This successful financing is yet another significant milestone as we further validate our PeptiCRAd platform and now take the important step into the first clinical study. In addition, the financing will allow us to further validate our other oncology and infectious disease platforms and our pan Coronavirus T-cell vaccine. I’m also delighted to announce Dr Sari Pesonen as our new CSO, who has been instrumental in bringing the company to this point and will continue to focus on advancing our immunotherapy platforms,” says Paul Higham, CEO of Valo Tx.

The majority of the proceeds will be used to finalise preparations and initiate a Phase 1 clinical study of the company’s lead tumour antigen-coated oncolytic virus candidate, PeptiCRAd-1, in addition to the continued development of the anti-infectives platforms including PeptiBAC and PeptiVAX. The proceeds will also be used to support the preparation of Valo’s IPO in 2022.

Chief Scientific Officer

The company also announced the internal promotion to Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Dr Sari Pesonen, Valo Tx’s current Head of R&D, and a co-founder of the company. Dr Pesonen has previously led scientific development in immuno-oncology biotech companies and has substantial experience in clinical drug development, including, at Oncos Therapeutics, which demonstrated, for the first time, the mode of action of oncolytic adenovirus-based cancer immunotherapy. She is a co-author on over 60 peer-reviewed research papers and inventor in several patents related to oncolytic viruses. Sari has a PhD in biology from the University of Turku, Finland.

“I’m thrilled to become Valo’s CSO after 5 years heading R&D at Valo, pursuing my passion to develop immunotherapy platforms. We expect our platform will be a powerful system to deliver advanced individualized or ‘patient-specific’ cancer treatments, in indications including metastatic melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and triple negative breast cancer,” says Dr Sari Pesonen, CSO of Valo Tx.

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