Shanghai Biopharmaceutical Fund Invests in U.S. Biotech Geneos Therapeutics to Advance Personalized Cancer Vaccine into Clinical Development

On September 27 (U.S. Eastern Time), Geneos Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company based in Pennsylvania, announced the completion of its Series A3 financing round, with participation from SHC.

Geneos has been deeply engaged in the field of personalized therapeutic cancer vaccines (PTCV) for many years and has successfully developed its proprietary GT-EPIC™ platform, which targets neoantigens in individual patients’ tumors to develop unique personalized cancer immunotherapies.At the end of 2022, Geneos Therapeutics obtained encouraging clinical data from its Phase Ib/IIa clinical trial in hepatocellular carcinoma, demonstrating that PTCV may play a significant role in the new paradigm of cancer immunotherapy.

The proceeds from this round of financing will be used to expand the Phase 1b/2a clinical trial of the personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine for hepatocellular carcinoma and to advance the GT-30 pipeline into registrational clinical trials.Geneos Therapeutics’ GT-30 pipeline has achieved positive clinical progress. This pipeline is evaluating the safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of PTCV (GNOS-PV02 plus plasmid-encoded IL-12) in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with progressive, unresectable, or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

GNOS-PV02 is the company’s first independently developed personalized tumor neoantigen vaccine, utilizing plasmid DNA as the vaccine vector.Its core technology originates from the laboratory of Professor David Weiner, a co-founder of the company and a researcher at the Wistar Institute of the University of Pennsylvania.By introducing DNA encoding dozens of personalized tumor antigens, designed based on autologous tumor mutation information from cancer patients, into the human body,This technology can effectively activate tumor-specific T cells in patients and generate a specific immune response, enabling patients to achieve long-term anti-tumor effects.

Geneos’ Proprietary GT-EPIC™ Platform

Personalized neoantigen vaccines have garnered significant attention this year., Moderna’s personalized vaccine product mRNA-4157 successively announced positive results from its Phase 2 clinical trial for the prevention of recurrence in melanoma after surgery (Keynote-942) at AACR 2023 and ASCO 2023. Currently, Moderna and Merck & Co. are jointly advancing the Phase 3 clinical study of mRNA-4157 in combination with pembrolizumab.

Dr. Niranjan Sardesai, President and CEO of Geneos Therapeutics, stated: We are deeply grateful to SHC for its recognition and support! The SHC team possesses extensive professional expertise and commands abundant industrial resources in China, which aligns perfectly with the Company’s development strategy of initially targeting liver cancer. SHC’s support will bring immeasurable value to Geneos Therapeutics!

Dr. Bao Jing, Partner at SHC, stated: SHC has closely monitored the oncology vaccine sector. Following systematic industry research, the team believes that combining Geneos’ independently developed GT-EPIC tumor vaccine screening platform with Inovio’s plasmid DNA vector platform will give rise to a new generation of cancer vaccine technologies. Therefore, SHC highly recognizes Geneos and will support the company in advancing GT-30 into registrational clinical trials as soon as possible. In the future, SHC will fully leverage domestic and international medical ecosystem resources to accelerate the introduction of the GT-30 pipeline into Shanghai, China, thereby benefiting numerous liver cancer patients in China and around the world.