NovalGen Raises £1.8M to Engineer Bispecific Antibodies That Turn Tumours Against Themselves
November 26, 2024
NovalGen, a UK biopharmaceutical company, has raised £1.8 million to advance its bispecific antibody therapeutics programme for cancer treatment. The company is developing antibody drugs engineered to bind two distinct molecular targets simultaneously — typically one target on the surface of a tumour cell and one target on the surface of a T cell — creating a physical bridge that redirects the patient's cytotoxic immune cells directly to the cancer and triggers their killing response with specificity and potency that single-target immunotherapies struggle to achieve.
Bispecific antibodies represent one of the most actively developed modalities in oncology drug discovery, driven by the clinical validation of several approved bispecific drugs in haematological cancers and the clear mechanistic logic of the approach. Conventional antibody cancer therapies typically work by blocking a tumour-promoting signalling pathway or by recruiting immune effector cells through their constant (Fc) region — an indirect mechanism with limited potency in many tumour types. Bispecifics that engage T cells directly, by contrast, force a physical contact between the T cell and the tumour cell that triggers an immediate and powerful cytotoxic response. The first clinical successes with this approach — blinatumomab in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and more recently several approved T-cell engager drugs — have validated the concept and driven enormous industry investment in engineering better bispecific molecules.
NovalGen's platform applies proprietary engineering approaches to the design of bispecific antibodies that combine potent T-cell engagement with a selectivity profile designed to minimise on-target, off-tumour toxicity — a challenge that has limited the clinical utility of early T-cell engaging bispecifics when applied to solid tumours. The company's pipeline targets cancer indications where the unmet medical need is high and where the biology supports a T-cell engager mechanism. The funding will be used to advance the lead programmes through preclinical development and build the body of evidence needed to progress towards clinical investigation.
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