HOOKIPA Pharma, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of immunotherapeutics targeting infectious diseases and cancers based on its proprietary arenavirus platform has announced that it has completed a $37.4 million (€33.2 million) series D financing.

The investment was led by Redmile Group with participation of additional new investors Invus and Samsara BioCapital, as well as a number of current investors.

The new funding will be primarily used to progress the clinical development of HOOKIPA’s lead development programs, HB-101, a prophylactic cytomegalovirus vaccine candidate, currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients awaiting kidney transplantation as well as HB-201 and HB-202, the Company’s lead oncology product candidates, in development for the treatment of human papillomavirus-positive cancers. In addition, HOOKIPA plans to apply its arenavirus platform to develop additional novel immuno-oncology product candidates.

Joern Aldag, Chief Executive Officer of HOOKIPA said: “We are pleased that this outstanding group of new and current investors supported this financing, which enables us to advance clinical development of our lead development programs. This financing also supports the potential and uniqueness of our novel technology platform and reinforces us in our mission to reprogram the immune system to combat infectious diseases and cancer”.

HOOKIPA has successfully completed a Phase 1 trial of a VaxWave based prophylactic vaccine to protect against cytomegalovirus infection and has started dosing patients in a Phase 2 trial in cytomegalovirus-negative patients awaiting kidney transplantation from cytomegalovirus-positive donors. To expand its infectious disease portfolio, HOOKIPA has entered into a collaboration and licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to jointly research and develop functional cures for HIV and Hepatitis B infections. HOOKIPA is building a proprietary immuno-oncology pipeline by targeting virally mediated cancer antigens, self-antigens and next-generation antigens.