French BioTech company ErVimmune raises €17 million to tackle hard-to-treat cancers

ErVimmune, a BioTech company out of Lyon developing cancer vaccines and cell therapies that target ‘cold tumors’ – cancers that do not respond to current immunotherapies – today announces the first closing of its €17 million ($19.8 million) Series A financing.

Existing shareholder Seventure Partners participated, alongside new investor SPRIM Global Investments (Singapore). This financing will also enable ErVimmune to leverage additional non-dilutive funding from Bpifrance and the France 2030 programme.

“This funding marks a critical milestone in bringing our off-the-shelf cancer vaccine to the clinic,” says Prof Stéphane Depil, MD, PhD, founder and board member at ErVimmune. “Our approach has the potential to transform treatment options for patients with difficult-to-treat cancers.”

The 2025-2026 funding landscape indicates continued investor interest in European oncology and immuno-oncology companies, providing context for ErVimmune’s Series A.

At the larger, later-stage end of the market, UK-based Artios Pharma raised €99 million to expand its precision oncology pipeline, while Germany’s Tubulis secured €308 million to advance its antibody–drug conjugate platform.

France has also recorded significant oncology financings, notably Marseille-based Adcytherix, which raised €105 million to progress novel ADC candidates, highlighting sustained domestic investment into cancer therapeutics.

Closer in scale to ErVimmune’s round are earlier-stage financings such as Germany’s T-CURX, which raised €17.7 million to support the development of new cancer treatments, and Switzerland-based Hedera Dx, which secured €15 million in Series A funding focused on improving access to modern cancer care.

Oncology and adjacent BioTech rounds during this period represent approximately €870 million in funding, positioning ErVimmune’s Series A in the low-mid range of a broader flow of capital into both large, late-stage oncology platforms and smaller, clinic-enabling immuno-oncology programmes.

“This financial backing enables us to accelerate the development of our lead vaccine candidate ErVac01,” adds Nathalie Donne, EMBA, CEO of ErVimmune. “We are excited to move forward into our first-in-human clinical phase and to build the foundations for a broader therapeutic platform.”

Founded in 2019, ErVimmune is a spin-off from the Centre Léon Bérard that specialises in developing therapeutic vaccines targeting new families of ‘unconventional’ tumor antigens derived from human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs).

Because of their similarity to viral protein fragments recognised as foreign by the immune system, HERV-derived antigens are prime targets, shared by different tumors, for the development of cancer vaccines and T-cell based immunotherapies, especially in tumors that respond poorly to current treatments.

The first indications represent two major unmet medical needs: triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), accounting for approximately 15% of breast cancer cases worldwide and known for its aggressivity, and ovarian cancer, the deadliest cancer among women globally.

“We are delighted to continue supporting ErVimmune as it enters this critical clinical phase,” shares Isabelle de Crémoux, CEO and managing partner at Seventure Partners. “The company is opening a new frontier in cancer immunotherapy. Advancing ErVac01 into the clinic is a decisive step toward translating this innovative vaccine platform into tangible benefits for patients.”

The Series A financing will drive the clinical development of ErVac01, ErVimmune’s lead candidate, a heterologous vaccine formulation containing a collection of HERV-derived epitopes, designed to cover the majority of the worldwide population in terms of HLA alleles (e.g. >80 % in Asia and >95 % in Europe).

By selecting antigens that are shared across patients and tumors, the resulting vaccine can be manufactured as a ready-to-use product rather than a personalised therapy. This is aimed at ‘cold’ tumors such as triple‑negative breast cancer or ovarian cancer, which currently respond poorly to checkpoint inhibitors.

The funding will support the execution of a first-in-human clinical trial, a pivotal step toward establishing the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine.

“We are eager to support ErVimmune’s lead programme, ErVac01, as it enters its first clinical study,” adds Michael Shleifer, founding partner at SPRIM Global Investments. “This financing marks an inflection point in validating ErVimmune’s proprietary antigen discovery platform, heralding a new era of shared, off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies. A successful outcome will enable the generation of successive waves of proprietary therapeutic candidates targeting untapped HERV antigens across multiple oncology indications.”

Since inception, ErVimmune has received financial support from Bpifrance, Cancéropôle Lyon Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR). At the end of 2020, Seventure Partners invested in a Seed funding, also backed in 2022 by grants from Bpifrance and ANR, and in November 2023 by €2.5 million in a grant received from the EIC Accelerator. In 2024, the company was selected to benefit from support from the Paris Saclay Cancer Cluster (PSCC) and in 2025 from the NETVA programme.

In parallel with this financing, ErVimmune announces the appointment of Eric Halioua as executive chairman of its board of directors, strengthening the company’s governance and strategic leadership as it enters the clinical development stage.

“ErVimmune is entering a defining phase in its development now it has the financial means to advance into the clinic,” says Eric Halioua. “I look forward to working closely with the team and the board to support clinical execution, strategic partnerships and long-term value creation to build a leading immuno-oncology company.”

The Series A round remains open to additional investors and will further enable the advancement of ErVac01 in triple-negative breast cancer and ovarian cancer, as well as the development of future therapeutic candidates targeting new HERV-derived antigens in additional oncology indications.

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