Epitopea Awarded Grant from Innovate UK's Cancer Therapeutics Programme

CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom and MONTREAL, Sept. 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Epitopea, a transatlantic cancer immunotherapeutics company developing accessible off-the-shelf RNA-based immunotherapies, announces it has been awarded a grant of just over £500,000 (approximately $658,000 USD) from Innovate UK.

Epitopea was selected to receive funding from Innovate UK's £12 million Cancer Therapeutics programme (1), which will provide a non-dilutive grant in support of research that is aimed at developing both therapeutic vaccines and T cell receptor-based therapies targeting antigens that are differentially presented by stromal cells. This class of therapies has the potential to impact patient outcomes given the well-established role of stromal cells in thwarting a therapeutic response to many established therapies.

The antigens in question were discovered by Epitopea's CryptoMap™ platform, which enables targeting of a new class of untapped tumor specific antigens, known as Cryptigen™ TSAs, that are broadly shared across multiple patients with the same tumor type. Epitopea intends to leverage these aberrantly expressed Cryptigen™ TSAs to expand its therapeutic pipeline of RNA immunotherapies aimed at extending the durability of patient responses.

Dr. Jon Moore, Epitopea's CSO, said, "We believe better cancer therapies are ...