LTF Supports Further Fundraising by Flu Vaccine Specialist

London Technology Fund (LTF), has completed a further investment in Immune Targeting Systems Limited (ITS), a company developing synthetic vaccines for mutating viruses.

LTF’s investment was part of a new investment round of up to £8.65m which will take the company’s flu vaccine through initial clinical trials. It was the only UK investor in an international syndicate including HealthCap (Sweden), Novartis Venture Fund (Switzerland), and Truffle Capital (France).

ITS, which raised £4.5m in 2007, is developing novel vaccines for the prevention and treatment of major lifethreatening viral infections of global impact, initially seasonal and pandemic influenza, and potentially followed by Hepatitis B & C, HIV, Dengue and Cancers.

Based on patented vaccine technology designed to target genetically diverse mutation-prone viruses, where cellular immunity is critical to disease protection, the vaccines should have broad efficacy across a wide range of virus strains and avoid the need to re-engineer the vaccine to target new virus strains. In the case of pandemic flu, it aims to offer governments the option of stockpiling vaccines which can be used as the first line of defence, giving time for strain-specific vaccines to be manufactured.