Novateur Ventures Participates in Founding and Financing of Epitopea, a New Cancer Therapeutics Company

The Newly Founded Company, Epitopea, Has Secured $14 Million in Seed Financing to Advance the Ground-breaking Tumor-Specific Antigen (TSA) Research of Drs. Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault at the Université de Montréal / IRIC in Partnership with IRICoR

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 18, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Novateur Ventures, a leading global life sciences advisory firm, announced it has participated in the $13.6M (£10.3M) seed investment raised by Epitopea, a cancer therapeutics company recently spun out of the Université de Montréal (UdeM) / IRIC in partnership with IRICoR. This investment will support the further development and application of Epitopea’s ground-breaking approaches to identify shared, aberrantly expressed tumor-specific antigens (TSA), that Epitopea has exclusively licensed from UdeM.

The licensing deal was catalysed by IRICoR, a Canadian Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research, and has been supported by Novateur Ventures since its commercial infancy. These novel TSAs are uniquely and broadly presented across cancer types, providing tumor-specific targets for immunotherapies that are predicted to kill malignant cells while sparing non-cancerous cells, potentially delivering significant therapeutic benefits across broad patient populations with minimal side effects.

“IRICoR has done tremendous work in building and accelerating the foundation of the company,” said Dr. Anne Assmus, Head of Global Business Development, Oncology & Immuno-Oncology of Novateur. “It has been the greatest pleasure working with such extraordinary individuals as Claude Perreault and Pierre Thibault to flesh out the business development potential of this powerful technology.”

“As we grow, we are thrilled about exploring new opportunities and continuing our collaboration with IRiCoR and other global institutions and experts to create companies solving unmet medical challenges,” said Ali Ardakani, Founder and Managing Director of Novateur. “We look forward to supporting Epitopea as they conduct further research on this new class of antigens, and catalyse their research into novel cancer immunotherapeutics, including therapeutic vaccines, cell therapies, and TCR-based biologics.”

“The launch of Epitopea supported by significant seed financing by a syndicate of world-class investors from Canada and the UK demonstrates the critical role played by IRICoR in investing in and nurturing promising early-stage research projects within Canadian universities and research centres,” commented Dr. Nadine Beauger, President & CEO of IRICoR.  “We appreciate Novateur’s world-class support over the past few years and look forward to advancing additional technologies together”.

Other transatlantic syndicates of top-tier life sciences investors who participated in the investment round include Advent Life Sciences, CTI Life Sciences, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and le Fonds de Solidarité FTQ.

For more information about Novateur Ventures, please visit https://www.novateur.ca and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Novateur Ventures
Novateur is a leading global life sciences advisory and investment firm with extensive experience related to business development and product development of therapeutics, medical devices and digital health products. For more information, visit: http://www.novateur.ca

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