Queens University Belfast has spun out its 100 th company with seed funding from a group of investors totalling £1.5 million.
The investment will go towards AilseVax, a company which specialises in identifying and developing therapeutic vaccines which work with the body to overcome cancer. It was formed as a spin-out from Queens and Trinity College Dublin and is made up with cancer experts from both universities.
Funding for the spin out has come from a range of investors including QUBIS, the commercialisation arm of Queen's University Belfast; Co Fund NI and TechStart NI as part of Invest Northern Ireland’s Access to Finance suite of funds; and Sapphire Capital, together with grants from Biomedical Catalyst, InnovateUK and Invest NI.
“We are very pleased with the support from our investors and competitive grant funding to advance our mission to develop novel cancer vaccine therapies,” Dr Paul Kerr, CEO at AilseVax, said. “With this support we can accelerate our research and bring promising therapies forward into clinical trials and ultimately improve the lives of cancer patients.”
Ailsevax has also been supported by the Ireland-Northern Ireland-US National Cancer Institute Cancer Consortium.
Its cancer vaccines act as a form of immuniotherapy, helping to educate the immune system to identify cancer cells so they can destroy them.
Founder of AilseVax and also Director of Research at the Patrick G Johnson Centre of Cancer Research Professor Dan Longley said the company is breaking boundaries.
“It is incredibly exciting to be part of AilseVax,” he said. “The science we are doing in Queen’s and Trinity is at the cutting-edge of cancer vaccine research.
“The approaches we are developing have the potential to significantly improve outcomes for people with cancer across the globe.”
