BRIEF—Portage invests in French cancer immunotherapy company

Canada’s Portage Biotech has made an investment in Stimunity, a Paris, France-based immuno-oncology company.

Portage's will invest up to 2 million euros ($2.5 million) subject to the successful completion of milestones.

Stimunity will use the proceeds of this seed round to fund the preclinical development of its lead product, a potent biologic enhancer of the STING pathway that activates the immune system against tumor cells.

Stimunity's lead candidate is a virus-like particle (VLP) encapsulating the natural agonist of STING; these VLPs will fuse with immune cells and induce a potent T-cell response against tumor cells that are poorly immunogenic.

The lead program is now at the early phase of preclinical validation.

Nicolas Manel, Stimunity's co-founder and the co-inventor of its technology is very confident, saying: "Early in vivo data shows that our approach synergizes with immune checkpoint therapies and leads to a potent therapeutic effect on distant tumors which is what most of patients need."