Brenus Pharma adds €11M to its Series A to fund Phase I in colorectal cancer where immunotherapy fails

Brenus Pharma, a Lyon-based clinical-stage biotech founded in 2019, has raised an €11 million ($12.6 million) extension to its Series A, bringing the round's total to approximately €33 million and total capital raised since inception to €38 million. The extension draws on follow-on participation from existing investors — Angelor, UI Investissement (managing the FRAI fund), Crédit Agricole (CACE Création and CACF Capital Innovation), Noshaq, Orsa (formerly Investsud), BIO JAG, and Bpifrance (via non-dilutive funding) — and adds two new international investors: Sambrinvest and Korea Omega Investment Corp. No single investor is named as lead. The round was announced 20 July 2026.

The capital funds a single near-term goal: completing Phase I for STC-1010 (NCT06934538), the company's lead drug candidate in microsatellite-stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted Brenus Pharma's Investigational New Drug application earlier this year, opening the regulatory path for U.S. clinical entry.

The immunologically cold problem

Current cancer immunotherapy — checkpoint inhibitors such as pembrolizumab and nivolumab — works by releasing the brakes on the immune system so it can recognise and attack tumour cells. It has transformed outcomes in melanoma, lung cancer, and a subset of colorectal cancer. The subset is small: roughly 95% of metastatic colorectal cancer cases are MSS, meaning they carry few mutations, generate weak immune signals, and remain largely invisible to the immune system. Checkpoint inhibitors don't work in MSS mCRC. There is currently no approved immunotherapy for these patients.

Brenus Pharma's approach is to make the tumour visible rather than releasing the brakes. Its Stimulated Ghost Cell (SGC) platform is designed as an off-the-shelf in vivo allogeneic immunotherapy: it mirrors the broad antigenic landscape of a tumour, engages dendritic cells to generate new immune responses, and aims to convert cold tumours into ones the immune system can recognise and attack. The approach is not personalised to any specific patient mutation, which is the central commercial argument: one formulation, predictable manufacturing timelines, competitive cost structure.

"This funding will enable us to complete the Phase I program and continue accelerating our in vivo immunotherapy platform by advancing our next drug candidate," said Paul Bravetti, CEO.

The investor logic and what Phase I must prove

The entry of Korea Omega Investment Corp — described as its first investment in France — reflects expanding Asia-Pacific interest in European clinical-stage immuno-oncology. "The company combines truly differentiated technology with early clinical validation and team executing at pace," said Dae Kyeong Bae, Senior Vice President at Korea Omega. "This is exactly the type of European innovation we want to support as we expand our portfolio internationally."

At €38 million in total capital and still pre-Phase I readout, investor confidence rests on Brenus Pharma's preclinical and translational data for the SGC platform. The Phase I this extension funds will produce the first human safety profile and any early efficacy signals in MSS mCRC patients. If STC-1010 shows that it is safe and generates measurable immune activation in patients the broader immunotherapy field has not been able to treat, it would establish Brenus Pharma in a position that does not yet have a meaningful competitive analogue. The clinical data from Phase I — expected to begin with FDA's IND acceptance now confirmed — is the specific proof point the next 18 months of capital is designed to produce.