Amal Therapeutics SA raises seed round from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds to develop therapeutic cancer vaccines based on its proprietary technology platform

Amal Therapeutics SA, a Geneva and Berlin-based company focusing on the development of therapeutic cancer vaccines, announced today that it has closed its seed financing round. The funds will be used to consolidate the cell-penetrating peptide based technology platform and progress the first vaccine candidate up to pre-clinical development. The investment round was led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), joined by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). The company also announced that it appointed Dr. Knut Elbers, Director and Investment Manager of the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund to its board of directors.

Amal Therapeutics was founded in 2012 as a spin-out from the University of Geneva. The company is developing a recombinant protein based vaccine with proprietary cell penetrating peptides as vector. The unique properties of this platform are its capacity to stimulate a potent integrated and multi-epitopic cellular immune response targeting cancer cells.

Madiha Derouazi, CEO and founder of Amal Therapeutics, says: “I am proud of the confidence that BIVF and HTGF have shown in our technology platform. I am delighted that Dr. Elbers is joining our board and I am very confident that his experience in vaccines will contribute to our future development.”

“I believe that Amal has the potential to develop a ground-breaking platform technology for cancer vaccination. I am pleased to join the board of Amal Therapeutics and to be working together with the scientific founder on proving the concept.”, comments Dr. Knut Elbers from BIVF. “Amal’s approach fulfills all requirements of an efficient vector for cancer immunotherapy applications and we are looking forward to further validating the platform with the proceeds of this round.”, adds HTGF’s Investment Manager Dr. Christian Jung.

For more information, please write to contact@amaltherapeutics.com

About Amal Therapeutics SA
Amal Therapeutics SA is a privately held Swiss/German biotech start-up company and spin-off from the University of Geneva. Amal Therapeutics was incorporated in September 2012. Amal uses its proprietary cell penetrating peptide platform to develop and progress therapeutic vaccines in oncology.

Contact:
Amal Therapeutics SA
Dr Madiha Derouazi
Avenue de la Roseraie 64
c/o Fondation pour recherches médicales
1205 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel. +41 (0)22 372 38 05
contact@amaltherapeutics.com
www.amaltherapeutics.com

About Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund
The Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) was formed in March 2010 to invest in biotechnology and start-up companies to help drive innovation in medical science. These may include – but are not limited to – novel technologies to address so far undrugable targets, new generation vaccines and new biological entities, such as antibody-dependent oncolysis. Novel therapeutic targets and disease-related biomarkers, as well as new approaches in regenerative medicine, are an additional focus. So far, BIVF invested in 11 companies and achieved already one successful exit by selling off the company Okairos AG to GSK in May 2012.

Contact:
Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund
Dr. Knut Elbers
Binger Strasse 173
55216 Ingelheim am Rhein
Germany
Tel: +49 6132 77 8740
Website: www.boehringer-ingelheim-venture.com/

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests in young, high potential high-tech start-ups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable start-ups to take an idea through prototyping and to market launch. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KfW Banking Group, as well as strategic corporate investors including ALTANA, BASF, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE Color, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Lanxess, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss.  High-Tech Gruenderfonds has about EUR 573.5 million under management in two funds (EUR 272 million HTGF I, EUR 301.5 million HTGF II).

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Dr. Christian Jung
Schlegelstraße 2
53113 Bonn
Tel.: +49 (228) 823 001-45
Fax: +49 (228) 823 000-50
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de