1.07 million Euro for venture leader Madiha Derouazi from Amal Therapeutics

19.08.2014

The Swiss biotech startup Amal Therapeutics and TransCure bioServices, a French preclinical contract research organization, have obtained a European Eurostars Programme grant, for a total of 1.07 million Euro. This award winning project, named HuVac, aims to use enhanced humanized immune system mouse models for vaccine development and to validate a novel therapeutic vaccine for human glioblastoma multiform (GBM).

Capture224.JPG
Founder Madiha Derouazi
Incorporated in September 2012, Amal Therapeutics is a spin-off of the University of Geneva. Its mission is to develop and progress novel therapeutic cancer vaccines with a proprietary family of vectors. After raising a seed round from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds at the beginning of the year,  venture kick finalist and venture leader 2012 Madiha Derouazi can announce the next success: toghether with TransCure bioServices Amal Therapeutics has been awarded by the European Eurostars Programm with a grant for 1 million Euro.
 
A new therapeutic vaccine for humanglioblastoma multiform
GBM is one of the most aggressive malignant primary brain tumors in humans with incidence of 2-3 cases per 100’000 in Europe and North America with no effective therapy. Dr. Madiha Derouazi, CEO of Amal Therapeutics, says “We are absolutely delighted to have secured this funding for developing new generation vaccines for GBM and the collaboration with TransCure will provide Amal with unique pre-clinical proof-of-concept data”.This 30-month HuVac project is designed to take step-wise approaches. During the initial phase,TransCure will first focus on the establishment of new humanized immune system mouse models for vaccine evaluation. Subsequently Amal’s innovative cancer vaccines, developed using its propriety cell-penetrating peptide platform, will be evaluated and validated.

Additional Links