InteRNA Technologies secures €18.5m in Series B financing

Waterman Ventures and current shareholders Aglaia Oncology Funds and OostNL participated in the funding. The Utrecht-based company said it will use the proceeds to start the clinical evaluation of InteRNA’s microRNA lead candidate, INT-1B3, in patients with advanced solid tumours as well as of other candidates of its preclinical pipeline. As part of the financing, Gabriele Campi, PhD, of AurorA Science joined the company’s Board of Directors.

As many miRNAs drugs, NT-1B3 is a pleiotropic regulator targeting not only the tumour cells themselves but also the tumour microenvironment. Besides acting on the tumour suppressor PTEN, INT-1B3  targets oncogenic PI3K/Akt and Ras/MAPK signaling resulting in inhibition of proliferation and migration as well asinduction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. The triggering of the immunogenic tumour cell death (ICD) process as well as the downregulation of the adenosine-A2A receptor pathway through inhibition of CD39/CD73 leads to a decrease in immunosuppressive FoxP3/Lag3 regulatory T cells and monocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (mMDSCs). As a preclinical result, the immune system is activated, and long-term immunity is triggered by recruitment of CD8⁺ effector T cells leading to decreased metastasis development and improved animal survival compared to anti-PD1 treatment. The created T cell-mediated immune response activity is also transferrable to naive mice via adoptive T cell transfer.