Text: Linda A. Thompson
Results from the company’s first round of clinical trials were promising – the 10 patients who participated in the trial were able to tolerate its TriMix drug and showed no dangerous side-effects. TriMix was developed in the Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy headed by Thielemans, with professor Bart Neyns from the Brussels University Hospital.
The next step is to increase the drug dosage in a second trial to take place this autumn. This time, the drug will be administered to patients whose tumours have already been surgically removed. A successful trial would see eTheRNA’s TriMix immunotherapy preventing any future spreading of the disease.
Thielemans and Neyns have an encouraging track record when it comes to developing immunotherapies. An earlier treatment developed by the two professors and their research teams that combined two immunotherapy drugs succeeded in curing one in five of the patients to whom it was administered. These results were particularly encouraging given that these patients all had advanced forms of skin cancer and were considered to have exhausted all treatment options.
eTheRNA
Founded by Thielemans as a spin-off from the VUB Laboratory for Molecular and Cellular Therapy, eTheRNA quickly drew interest from investors. The company succeeded in raising €24 million from international venture capital firms in 2016 – one of the biggest financing rounds in Europe for an early-stage biotechnology company that year.