First-in-Class Therapeutics targeting Pan-Cancer Glycosaminoglycans
VAR2 Pharmaceuticals
We are a clinical-stage Danish biotech company spun out from the University of Copenhagen. Meet our Team and read our Company History.
Our Mission is to develop novel therapies for cancer with a particular focus on hard-to-treat, recurrent and metastatic cancers.
A pan-cancer, tumor-specific antigen identified by VAR2 Pharma founders.
Oncofetal Chondroitin Sulfate (ofCS) is a long carbohydrate chain with a unique sulfation pattern. ofCS appears as a post-translational modification to several proteoglycans and is highly overexpressed in over 95% of cancers, with little to no expression in healthy tissue (except for placenta).
Tissues from patient needle biopsies stained for oncofetal CS and nucleus
CryoEM structure of Vartumab oligomer binding oncofetal CS
The first and only-in-class antibodies with high affinity and specificity for ofCS.
Vartumabs have tunable plasma half-life, achieve complete tumor tissue penetration, bind 95% of cancers and have demonstrated high tumor-specificity and limited off-target binding in a first-in-human imaging trial.
We have shown that Vartumabs are safe and effective across animals models as antibody-drug conjugates, bispecifics and cell therapies.
We have compiled an extensive pre-clinical data package showing efficacy and safety of Vartumabs as antibody drug conjugates, bispecifics and cell therapies.
Our first clinical study, an immune PET/CT phase 0 imaging trial, started in Dec 2024 (VARTUTRACE, NCT06645808). Preliminary results show unprecedented tumor specificity and reduced off-target binding for Vartumabs (VTP-01 and VTP-02) with no patient stratification.
In parallel, we now initiated GMP production of VTP-03, an antibody drug conjugate, in July 2025 and expected to be tested in a phase I/IIA oncology trial in 2027.
