TILT Biotherapeutics – More effective therapies to treat cancer

Why?

Every year millions of patients die of various types of cancer. Cancer is, in fact, one of the main causes of death globally. Worldwide over two million people die of lung cancer each year, for instance, while ovarian cancer and skin cancer each claim some 300,000 lives annually. New immunotherapy treatments greatly help some cancer patients; nevertheless, an estimated 50-90 per cent of cancer patients receive no benefit from the currently available treatment options. By the early 2030s, the market for anticancer agents is estimated to be worth over USD 60 billion – and that is just for lung cancer, ovarian cancer, and skin cancer therapies.

What and how?

TILT Biotherapeutics is developing next generation oncolytic viruses. The technology is based on naturally occurring flu causing adenoviruses that are genetically engineered to destroy cancer cells while being harmless to normal cells. These viruses have also been engineered to carry genes of immunostimulatory cytokines. This modification allows cytokines to be produced in cancer cells resulting in activation of patient’s own immune system to act against cancer.

Preliminary results of clinical trials indicate that oncolytic virus therapy developed by TILT, combined with existing immunotherapy treatments, can help some of those patients that previously received no benefit from immunotherapy medicines.

Growth and internationalisation

TILT Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that has set its sights on global markets. The company has facilities in Finland and the USA, while clinical trials of its medicines are conducted in Denmark, France, and the USA as well as in Finland. TILT plans to increase the number of clinical trial centres, particularly in the USA, which is the most important market for anticancer medicines. TILT conducts the early stages of product development in-house while all its clinical studies take place in hospitals.

When a cancer treatment has been demonstrated as safe and well tolerated as well as sufficiently effective, the plan is to sell sales and marketing rights to the medicine to an international pharmaceutical company. The oncolytic virus therapy developed by TILT is suitable for treating all kinds of solid tumours, and since these represent over 90 per cent of all cancers, TILT’s therapies have extremely high growth potential.

The importance of venture capital

Since its establishment in 2013, TILT Biotherapeutics has raised more than EUR 60 million in financing, of which about EUR 45 million in venture capital. The level of venture capital and, in later growth stages, private equity investments in pharmaceutical development in Finland has typically been lower than in the rest of Europe.

In early summer 2022, Tesi joined TILT Biotherapeutics’ EUR 22 million financing round, which was led by Lifeline Ventures. Tesi also participated in the company’s financing round earlier this year.

Although much high-quality basic research into pharmaceuticals is conducted in Finland, commercialization of the results has remained at a low-level owing to the small size of the country’s venture capital and private equity market. Through its investment, Tesi aims to develop Finland’s venture capital and private equity market and to create a cluster of expertise in health tech and the development of pharmaceutical products.

General information

TILT Biotherapeutics was established in 2013. The company’s technology is based on long-term research into anticancer virus therapies carried out in the University of Helsinki’s Faculty of Science headed by the company’s founder and CEO Professor Akseli Hemminki. Based in Helsinki, TILT Biotherapeutics employs some 20 people and has a subsidiary in Boston, USA.