Oncos Therapeutics Raises € 4M From HealthCap To Develop Cancer Treatments
Oncos Therapeutics, a biotech company developing new cancer therapeutics based on its next generation oncolytic viruses, completed a € 4 million ($ 5.5 million) investment from HealthCap.
“This is the first step to turn our Advanced Therapy Access Program results into cancer therapeutics”, comments Pekka Simula, CEO and co-founder.
Oncolytic viruses enter into cancer cells where they aggressively replicate. The replication kills cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.
The next generation oncolytic viruses address the key challenges of cancer therapy: They mediate sustained anti-tumor immune response, are tumor selective, provide systemic response and have mild to moderate side effects compared to routine therapies.
Venture Cup Finland Chooses Finalists For Million Euro Prize
Venture Cup Finland has chosen the seven finalists that will compete for the million euro prize money. We rumoured of this back in October 2008 and the competition, along with the amount of prize money. The prize itself won't be an immediate million euros in the bank account, but an admission to the Finnish Tekes' innovative young companies -pipeline.
The jury that has done the picking includes Risto Siilasmaa (F-Secure), Hannu Järvinen (Tekes), Will Cardwell (Technopolis Ventures), Moaffak Ahmed (Veturi), Pekka Roine (InnoSpa), Heikki Mäkijärvi (Accel), Petri Laine (Vera Venture), Michael Panaccio (Starfish Ventures), Margus Uudam (Ambien Sound Investments), Tsvika Ben-Porat (Maayan Ventures) as well as Daniel Blomquist (Creandum). A pretty comprehensive line-up indeed.
The companies that have been picked as the finalists are in no particular order ClaroVision, Ekogen, Entetrainer, Navigil, Oncos Therapeutics, Pixpolar and ZenRobotics. Unfortunately many of the companies have decided to neglect their web presence so it is very difficult for the public to know what they are after.
The companies come from multiple industries. They divide into entertainment, hardware manufacturers, clean tech companies as well as medicare companies, just to mention some. The winner of the competition will be announced on June 9th in Ravintola Sipuli, Helsinki.
Update: The event is organised on June 9th - this has been corrected to the text as well. Apologies for that.
