Medical University of Innsbruck immunotherapy spinout ViraTherapeutics has been bought for $245m by its existing shareholder Boehringer Ingelheim, enabling EMBL to exit.
ViraTherapeutics (ViraT), an Austria-based immuno-oncology spinout of Medical University of Innsbruck, was acquired by pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim yesterday for €210m ($245m), allowing European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) to exit.
Founded in 2013, ViraT develops oncological drugs based on cancer-fighting, or oncolytic, viruses that have been engineered to leave normal tissue unharmed while destroying cancerous cells.
The spinout is commercialising research by Dorothee von Laer, head of the division of virology at the university. Its lead asset is a modified form of vesicular stomatitis virus called VSV-GP that enhances the patient’s immune response and impacts tumours directly.
VSV-GP is currently in advanced pre-clinical development but is expected to undergo its first clinical trials on cancer patients “in the near future”.
The spinout will remain in Innsbruck as a distinct unit of Boehringer Ingelheim’s Discovery Research subsidiary and will continue to work closely with the university and the regional scientific community.
In March this year, Boehringer and ViraT had already agreed to collaborate on a second VSV-based program incorporating immunotherapeutic material from the corporate’s portfolio.
The company raised $4m in a series A round in 2015 co-led by EMBL’s investment arm, EMBL Ventures, together with Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, the pharmaceutical company’s corporate venturing unit.
Virat had raised an undisclosed sum in pre-seed funding from regional investment firm Startup.Tirol and state-owned development bank Austria Wirtschaftsservice. Its backers also include Empl foundation and Austrian Research Promotion Agency, though further details could not be ascertained.
Jan Adams, managing partner at EMBL Ventures, said: “As one of the lead investors in ViraTherapeutics, we are proud to have been involved in building the company and nurturing its growth and development over the last three years.
“This acquisition is a perfect illustration of our theme-based investment strategy to leverage private capital to validate finance and grow ground-breaking scientific innovation from European biotech companies that we pro-actively source from the life-science ecosystem.”
