RhoVac retains international investment bank as advisor for desired RV001 transaction

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Oct 11, 2021, 02:49 ET

STOCKHOLM, Oct. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- RhoVac AB ("RhoVac"), a Swedish cancer immunotherapy company, announces today, October 11, 2021, that it has retained the services of Stifel Nicolaus Europe Limited ("Stifel"), a global investment bank, as its exclusive financial adviser in connection with the planning, execution and closing of a potential transaction or partnership deal (a "transaction"). Such a transaction would be pivotal for further development and commercialisation of the company's lead drug candidate, RV001. RhoVac will seek a potential transaction assuming a positive outcome in the ongoing clinical phase IIb trial, BRaVac, in prostate cancer, which has an expected read-out in H1 2022.

RhoVac's clinical phase IIb study, BRaVac, is a placebo-controlled trial aiming to prove that the company's lead drug candidate, a RhoC based cancer vaccine called RV001, can prevent or delay the progression of advanced prostate cancer in patients with BioChemical Recurrence (BCR) after curative intent surgery or radiation therapy.

RhoVac recently announced that the BRaVac study is fully recruited and that a read-out is expected in the first half of 2022. On top of this, recently announced data from a 3-year follow-up study of the patients participating in the RV001 phase I/II study that completed in 2018, showed that patients who participated in that trial were all doing well in terms of non-progression of their cancers, and, importantly, that the RhoC specific immune response was still largely intact in this patient population three years after the last injection was administered. Given this, RhoVac is in a situation in which it must prepare itself for executing a transaction. This will be pivotal for further development and commercialisation of RV001, assuming a positive outcome of the ongoing clinical Phase IIb study. As such, RhoVac has retained the services of Stifel for the purpose of advising and assisting the company in exploring strategic alternatives for RV001.

Stifel is a full-service investment bank, operating globally. Its expertise spans sectors and products in both public and private markets. Stifel has a vast experience of both M&A and license deals in the health care sector, including several transactions in the oncology space.

RhoVac CEO, Anders Månsson, comments: "RhoVac is a small company, but its lead drug candidate, RV001, is potentially a very big opportunity for a larger pharmaceutical company to take through the final stages of development, possibly in several cancers, and through to executing a global launch. While our clinical phase IIb trial is still ongoing, it is vital that we plan for success. As such, we believe that with Stifel on board as advisors, we will have the best possible team in place to secure a deal that will guarantee a speedy further development of RV001, for the sake of the patients that could eventually benefit from it, and also to justly reward the RhoVac investors.

This disclosure contains information that RhoVac is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 11-10-2021 08:37 CET.