Infinitopes, a clinical-stage cancer vaccine biotechnology company spun out of the UK’s University of Oxford and supported by Cancer Research UK, said it has expanded its seed financing to USD 35.1 million, co-led by Octopus Ventures and new investor Amplify Bio, with participation from Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancer Research Horizons, and Manta Ray Ventures. This latest close adds approximately USD 15.4 million to earlier capital, positioning the company to advance its lead program into human testing.
The funding will support the launch of lead pipeline candidate ITOP1’s Phase I/IIa VISTA trial, a first-in-human, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study designed to assess the precision cancer vaccine’s ability to prevent recurrence of esophageal cancer following surgical resection. The vaccine is designed to activate CD8+ cytotoxic T cells with the aim of eliminating residual cancer cells expressing the (undisclosed) target antigens. The trial will be conducted across multiple UK NHS university cancer centers.
Infinitopes is developing cancer vaccines for various solid tumor indications using two in-house platforms, enabling precision target discovery and high efficiency, vector delivery systems. The firm’s Precision Immunomics platform applies a bespoke AI/ML-driven immunopeptidomics approach to identify highly expressed, immunogenic tumor antigens and pair them with scalable vaccine vector technologies.
Jonathan Kwok, CEO of Infinitopes, said the expanded capital and investor support will enable proof-of-concept evaluation of this off-the-shelf vaccine platform, with data anticipated to be shared at major scientific meetings later in 2026.