Tokyo, August 9, 2019 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) and CYTLIMIC Inc. today announced that financing of 1.3 billion yen (around US$ 12 million at current rate) was completed through the achievement of the milestones, including the first IND filing of CYT001*, pursuant to the agreement with current shareholders; i.e., NEC Corporation, NEC Capital Solutions Limited, Fast Track Initiative, Inc., and SMBC Venture Capital Co., Ltd. In total, 2.3 billion yen (around US$ 21 million) has been raised since the establishment of CYTLIMIC in December 2016.

In recent years, Immune-Checkpoint Inhibitors (ICI), such as anti-PD-(L)1 drug, have been expanding their applications; However, a combination of ICI with other drugs are still needed for more than 70% of patients who don't respond to ICI alone. Among those combination drugs, cancer vaccine is considered as a promising approach to turn “Cold tumors to Hot ones" and to make ICI work. CYT001 is designed to effectively turn “Cold tumors to Hot ones" with the AI-designed optimized shared-antigen peptides, and an optimized combination adjuvant of Poly ICLC (Hiltonol) and LAG-3Ig (Eftilagimod alpha or IMP321). The recent financing allows CYTLIMIC to conduct further clinical trials for the POC establishment of CYT001.

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About NEC Corporation
NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. The NEC Group globally provides "Solutions for Society" that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company's corporate message of "Orchestrating a brighter world," NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, visit NEC at https://www.nec.com.