Egle Therapeutics SAS (Egle), a clinical-stage biotechnology company pioneering precision medicines that modulate regulatory T cells (Tregs) to rebalance immune function in patients with autoimmune diseases and cancer, announced it was awarded approximately €8 million in grant funding by Horizon Europe, the European Commission’s key funding program for research and innovation. This funding from the European Union will support an Egle-led initiative in partnership with a consortium of four leading European scientific institutions to advance the clinical development of EGL-001, a novel anti-CTLA-4 x IL-2m fusion protein, and to facilitate a comprehensive translational research program to de-risk later-stage clinical development.
“This Horizon Europe funding strengthens our ability to advance EGL-001’s clinical development and significantly expand the translational research needed to guide patient selection alongside several leading European partners. The grant enables the evaluation of EGL-001 by studying therapy-naïve patients in the neoadjuvant setting and focusing on head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as a single, well-defined indication,” said John Celebi, CEO of Egle Therapeutics. “In parallel, we are advancing our ongoing Phase 1/2 study of EGL-001, where it has been well tolerated with early signs of single-agent activity in PD-(L)1-resistant disease. We remain on track to report top-line data from this study in the second half of this year and look forward to bringing our Treg-focused product candidates closer to patients in need.”
As part of this initiative, Egle will collaborate with University College London (United Kingdom), Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) (Spain), Gustave Roussy (France), and Technical University of Dresden (Germany) to conduct a multicenter, randomised, open-label Phase 1/2 neoadjuvant clinical trial in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), a high-incidence, high-mortality cancer with limited benefit from current immunotherapies. This trial will evaluate the safety, tolerability, and early efficacy of EGL-001 in combination with pembrolizumab in these patients.
This initiative also integrates a comprehensive translational research program, including multi-omics profiling, immune monitoring, and AI-driven pathomics modeling, to deliver predictive biomarkers for patient stratification, ultimately supporting regulatory alignment and de-risking later-stage development. The consortium also provides cutting-edge expertise in immunology, genomics, pathology, and computational biology, alongside established clinical trial capacity across EU member states.
