Shreds of Tregs: French biotech wins Medicxi back­ing to kill the rogue im­muno­sup­pres­sive agent to fight can­cer

Ex­ist­ing CD25 drugs tend to thwart IL-2 sig­nal­ing, which is im­per­a­tive to shap­ing the body’s im­mune re­sponse. But a French drug de­vel­op­er thinks it has found a way to snuff out reg­u­la­to­ry T cells (known to con­tribute to the ear­ly es­tab­lish­ment and pro­gres­sion of tu­mors) by tar­get­ing CD25 with­out dis­turb­ing IL-2, and now has €18.5 mil­lion in its cof­fers to prove it.

The Parisian com­pa­ny, Alder­aan Biotech­nol­o­gy, is still very ear­ly in its jour­ney. The Se­ries A round of fund­ing from Ad­vent France Biotech­nol­o­gy (AFB) and Medicxi will be used to com­plete the pre­clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of its reg­u­la­to­ry T cell (Tregs) de­plet­ing CD25-spe­cif­ic an­ti­body and take it in­to the clin­ic by 2022.

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