aMoon, an Israeli venture capital firm, has taken part in a $30 million Series A round of financing in the British medical company MiNA Therapeutics. Both the company and the VC firm seem to have a connection in that they employ odd spellings for their names. MiNA is working on a new cancer treatment that uses the body’s own immune system to fight the disease. aMoon is a leading health-tech & life sciences venture fund.
The firm partners with management teams who use technology and cutting-edge science to accelerate cures for the world’s most life-threatening conditions and those providing solutions for global healthcare’s biggest cost drivers.
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Does anyone remember a time when Israelis could only dream of someday investing millions abroad? And of course, this is an investment in the medical field. Jewish doctors and Jewish bankers getting together in an Israeli financial firm to invest in new medical treatments.
Everyone wants a cure for cancer. While great strides have been made over the years in the treatment of the disease, such treatments are expensive and come with all sorts of complications. The company which develops a new treatment, especially an immune system based one, will make a fortune.
MiNA Therapeutics produces RNA activation therapeutics related to cancer treatment. Some sort of gene activation is used to enable the development of new medicines that restore normal function to patients’ cells. MiNA’s lead candidate, MTL-CEBPA, is a first-in-class therapy that reduces immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. MTL-CEBPA has been studied in clinical trials in more than 70 patients with advanced liver cancer, demonstrating good initial results.
Used in combination with the standard primary cancer treatment drug, sorafenib, MTL-CEBPA improved the rate, duration and depth of response when compared to data independently reported from third-party studies with single agent sorafenib therapy. The additional funding will enable MiNA Therapeutics to conduct a Phase 2 study of MTL-CEBPA in combination with sorafenib in patients with advanced liver cancer and TIMEPOINT, an ongoing Phase I/Ib study of MTL-CEBPA in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced solid tumor malignancies.
aMoon led the round and joining it were several existing investors in MiNA. As is usually the case, with investments of this size someone from aMoon will join the MiNA board of directors. Dr. Gur Roshwalb, M.D., M.B.A., the managing director at aMoon, will be the new board member.
The proceeds from the financing will be used to advance the company’s pipeline of small activating RNA (“saRNA”) therapeutics, and to support the continued clinical development of MiNA’s lead candidate, MTL-CEBPA, as a combination treatment in cancer.
