Nijmegen, 1 April 2016
ORCA Therapeutics B.V. raises € 1.5 Million for the nonclinical evaluation and GMP production of their lead product ORCA-010. ORCA Therapeutics is a Dutch biopharmaceutical company developing innovative oncolytic immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. ORCA’s lead product ORCA-010 is a powerful oncolytic adenovirus that selectively kills cancer cells and induces an antitumor immune response, without being harmful to normal cells. ORCA-010 is being developed for patients with locally recurrent prostate cancer.
“The implications of the findings in the planned clinical evaluation of ORCA-010 will reach beyond treatment of prostate cancer”
Oncolytic viruses provide a particularly attractive new treatment option for cancer according to Victor van Beusechem, who is the CSO of ORCA Therapeutics and Professor of Applied Molecular Oncology at VU University medical center (VUmc). ORCA’s CEO Kees Groen calls ORCA-010 an unique product as it incorporates a combination of technologies for effective killing of cancer cells that has not been used before. Although the ORCA-010 product will first be developed for prostate cancer, it is expected to have wide applicability for many other types of cancer. “Therefore, the implications of the findings in the planned clinical evaluation of ORCA-010 will reach beyond treatment of prostate cancer” says Victor.
The technology and IP portfolio of ORCA Therapeutics originates from the ground-breaking research performed at the Department of Medical Oncology at the VUmc Cancer Center Amsterdam, and the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona. Through this new financing round ORCA has strengthened its investor base with an additional group of private investors.
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