NovalGen

NovalGen was founded in 2018 as a spinout from University College London, built on proprietary innovations in bispecific antibody science developed by Professor Amit Nathwani and colleagues. The company was created to address a persistent and serious problem in cancer immunotherapy: that T-cell engager therapies — despite their therapeutic promise — carry significant risks of dangerous immune overactivation and toxicity. NovalGen's founding insight was that the immune response itself could be used to regulate drug activity, creating a safer class of therapies with broader clinical applicability.

At the core of NovalGen's platform is AutoRegulation technology, a proprietary mechanism that embeds a self-limiting feedback loop directly into bispecific antibody drugs. This enables the therapy to reduce its own activity as the immune response reaches a threshold, preventing the cytokine storms and toxicities that have limited the use of first-generation T-cell engagers. The company's lead programme, NVG-222, is a bispecific antibody targeting ROR1 and CD3, designed for haematological malignancies and solid tumours. In March 2026, the first patient was dosed in a Phase I clinical trial at University College London Hospitals, sponsored by Cancer Research UK's Centre for Drug Development.

NovalGen has raised multiple rounds including a 2019 Series A backed by Convergys Capital, UCL Technology Fund, and UCL Business, and a 2025 round of £1.8 million. The company has built strategic partnerships with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and CDMO Mabion, which manufactured the first GMP batch of NVG-222 for the clinical trial.