VC firms in $59.6m series-C for Hookipa

The round was led by an anonymous blue-chip US public investment fund with new investors HB Partners, Hillhouse Capital, Sirona Capital and Gilead.

All previous investors in the company also took part, including Sofinnova Partners, Forbion Capital Partners, Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Takeda Ventures and BioMedPartners.

The fresh capital will be used to progress two clinical trials, a phase II study of a vaccine for organ transplant patients and a phase I study of an immunisation therapy for patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Additionally, Hookipa will expand its technology platform to look at other diseases such as prostate cancer.

Previous funding
Sofinnova led Hookipa's €7m series-A round alongside Forbion in October 2011. The capital was raised in order to launch the pre-clinical development of its Vaxwave technology.

The two investors jointly led Hookipa's series-B in November 2013, a €20m round with participation from Takeda, BIVF and BioMedPartners.

Company
Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Vienna, Hookipa develops prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer. It does so using its Vaxwave technology, which is a vaccine platform that uses a replication-defective viral vector.

Hookipa claims its Vaxwave technology could potentially be a treatment for cancer immunotherapy, due to the technology's vectors having the ability to be repeatedly administered to stimulate cytotoxic T cell (CD8+ T cell) responses against tumour targets. CD8+ T cells are a type of white blood cell that kills both cancer cells and cells that are infected with a virus.

People
Hookipa – Joern Aldag (CEO).

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