Our Mission is to develop novel therapies for cancer with a particular focus on hard-to-treat, recurrent and metastatic cancers.
2012
Company Incorporation
VAR2 Pharmaceuticals spuns out from the University of Copenhagen propelled by an unexpected finding linking cancer to malaria.
20??
Identification of Target Molecule
Oncofetal Chondroitin Sulfate (ofCS) is identified as the molecule being expressed in the placenta and later demonstrated to be ubiquitously, selectively and highly expressed in cancers.
20??
Identification of first therapeutic agent
VAR2CSA is identified as the malaria parasite protein responsible for binding ofCS in the placenta. VAR2 Pharma team successfully produces a recombinant variant
2017
Diagnostics' Subsidiary
VARCT Diagnostics is established as a subsidiary of VAR2 Pharma. VARCT focuses on various diagnostic applications using ofCS presence in circulating tumor cells and other relevant agents.
20??
rVAR2 in vitro and in vivo efficacy and safety demonstrated
rVAR2 demonstrated to bind various cancers (incl. patient tissues), and conjugation with toxins resulted in efficacious tumor regression in various cancers in mouse models. rVAR2 has been discontinued as a therapeutic approach (but not as a detection tool, see to VARCT Diagnostics website) in favor of proprietary antibodies with superior scaling characteristics.
2022
Vartumabs (IP-protected Abs) identified
Testing multiple large phage display libraries in an elaborate panning strategy on rVAR2 purified ofCS resulted in 2 lead candidates with high affinity and high specificity for ofCS. VAR2 Pharma has extensively tested and validated these lead candidates as short chain variable fragments.
2023
Strong in vivo safety and efficacy data
VAR2 Pharma has demonstrated strong safety and efficacy in mouse models of 10+ cancer types using different therapeutic assets, including Antibody-Drug Conjugates and CD3-bispecifics.
2024
First Clinical Study
Microdosing Phase 0 study planned to start Q3 2024. GMP production of scFvs completed.