Hookipa Biotech AG, a company pioneering a new class of vaccines, is pleased to announce that it was the winner of the Best Financing Deal Award in the Vaccine Industry Excellence (ViE) Awards 2014, as part of VaccineNation and the World Vaccine Congress in Washington D.C. last week.
The Award was in recognition of Hookipa’s €20 million ($27.6 million) Series B financing closed in October 2013. Existing investors Sofinnova Partners and Forbion Capital Partners led the financing with new investors Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Takeda Ventures and BioMedPartners joining the round.
Accepting the award, Dr. Katherine Cohen, Chief Executive Officer of Hookipa Biotech said: “We are delighted that our successful financing round has been recognized in this way. Funds raised have been used to progress our viral vaccine pipeline and to explore applications in cancer immunotherapy.”
“I would like to thank our investors for their continued support of Hookipa and I look forward to our continuing collaboration during our exciting next stage of development” she said.
Hookipa has developed Vaxwave®, a novel and proprietary viral vector platform with exquisite capacity for the stimulation of antibody and CD8+ T cell immunity. The Company’s lead product candidate based on this platform, HB101, is a vaccine against cytomegalovirus (CMV) that is currently in advanced pre-clinical development and testing. The new investment will be used to progress HB101 into Phase I clinical testing and to further industrialize Vaxwave® technology, both for partnering and for building a robust product pipeline in the area of infectious diseases and cancer. Hookipa’s Vaxwave® technology exhibits great potential for cancer immunotherapy, since Vaxwave® vectors are not inhibited by anti-vector immunity and can be repeatedly administered for stimulating potent CD8+ T cell responses against tumor targets. The series B financing will thus also be used to explore applications for novel cancer therapies.
Other finalists were Immatics, Madison Vaccines, Vaxess Technologies and PaxVax.
For more information on the awards and winners please visit http://www.vaccinenation.org/2014/03/26/announcing-2014-vie-awards-winners/#sthash.juqo0YiW.dpuf.
About Hookipa Biotech
Hookipa Biotech AG is developing a new class of innovative prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines based on its proprietary Vaxwave® technology. The Vaxwave® technology is a novel vaccine platform using a replication-defective viral vector for the prevention and treatment of multiple infectious diseases and cancer. The platform is one of the most promising new technologies for next generation vaccines due to its ability to stimulate both potent B-cell and CD8+ T-cell immune responses. Vaxwave® has been validated in various disease models. Unlike other vectors, Vaxwave® vaccines can be administered repeatedly to boost the immune system. The Company is focused on the development of its lead vaccine candidate HB101, a vaccine for immunization against cytomegalovirus (CMV) and plans to further industrialize the Vaxwave® technology and build a robust product pipeline in the area of infectious diseases and cancer. Hookipa has raised a total of €27 million in equity finance from internationally renowned venture capital investors including Sofinnova Partners, Forbion Capital Partners, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Takeda Ventures and BioMedPartners. For more information, please visit - www.hookipabiotech.com