CAP-CMV GmbH Raises New Funds To Further Develop Its Novel hCMV Vaccine And Appoints New CEO
Cologne, Germany, March 24, 2014 / B3C newswire / – CAP-CMV GmbH, a company focusing exclusively on the development of a novel vaccine protecting against human Cytomegalovirus (hCMV) infection, announced today that it raised in total € 1.7 m from its investors Peppermint Venture Partners (PVP), NRW.Bank, Creathor Venture, KfW and private investors in a combined seed/start-up investment.
The funds will be used to advance further it´s vaccine candidate, HCMV dense bodies (DBs) derived from CEVEC´s human CAP cell technology. DBs contain highest amount of relevant antigens, and were shown to elicit strong and lasting humoral and cellular immune responses in preclinical models. DBs are the ideal vaccine candidate to prevent hCMV caused diseases. Congenital infection with hCMV is a leading cause for neonatal disabilities. As up to 40% of the population carry this virus the hCMV infection is also a major health threat to recipients of solid organ or stem transplantations. Wolfgang Kintzel, start-up CEO of CAP-CMV comments: “We are very happy that we could now secure our Series A financing round for this unique vaccine project. The money will be used to prove in various animal studies the clear advantages of our system against other technologies as well as advancing our pre-clinical programs.”
Also in March CAP-CMV´s shareholders appointed Albrecht Läufer as its new CEO. Joachim Rautter, Managing Partner at PVP, and speaker of CAP-CMV´s advisory board says: “Wolfgang has put CAP-CMV on the right track and we thank him for his tremendous efforts to establish the company. We now welcome Albrecht and wish him success in taking forward CAP-CMV on its growth path while Wolfgang will be appointed to the board of CAP-CMV”. Albrecht Läufer was cofounder and first CEO of Vakzine Projekt Management GmbH (VPM), the company which has started preclinical development of HCMV dense bodies and then licensed the project to CAP-CMV.
About Peppermint VenturePartners
PVP is a Berlin based Venture Capital Company investing in young healthcare companies with a focus on Medical Devices and selected Pharma projects, mainly within Europe, that have successfully demonstrated a first proof-of-concept for their technology, product or services. At the end of 2010 PVP, in association with the Charité Foundation, launched the new Peppermint Charité Biomedical Fund (CBF). In the framework of its established collaboration with the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, PVP has access to the proprietary network and evaluation platform of one of the largest medical schools in Europe and to its international partners. PVP currently manages funds exceeding € 50 million.
About CAP-CMV GmbH
CAP-CMV GmbH is a spin-out of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH and focuses exclusively on the development of a novel vaccine protecting against human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection. The approach of CAP-CMV is the use of non-infectious “HCMV dense bodies (DBs)”, which is one of the most convincing technology approaches to date. In combination with CEVEC’s unique human cell line expression system (CAP®), the novel vaccine can be produced at industrial scale under serum free suspension culture conditions. With previously demonstrated preclinical efficacy the clinical work plan of the novel vaccine (CAP-CMV-001) aims at solid organ transplantation first and to address the broader indication congenital CMV-infections at a later stage. (CAP-CMV-001) as well as the CAP® cell line technology are both protected by a strong patent portfolio.
Contacts:
Peppermint VenturePartners GmbH
Dr. Joachim Rautter
Managing Partner
Kurfürstendamm 21
10719 Berlin / Germany
Phone: +49 30 590064 411
E-Mail: jr@peppermint-vp.com
Homepage: www.peppermint-vp.com
CAP-CMV GmbH
Dr. Albrecht Läufer
CEO
Gottfried-Hagen Str. 62
51105 Köln / Germany
Phone: +49 221 99 57 26-00
E-Mail: laeufer@cap-cmv.de
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