The investment strengthens Neomatrix with new financial resources and scientific, industrial and clinical expertise. The Rome-based biotech aims to start the first clinical trial of its personalized cancer vaccine Neo-Lin in 2027.

Rome, November 4, 2026 – Neomatrix, an Italian biotechnology company specializing in the development of personalized cancer vaccines based on synthetic DNA, announces the entry among its investors of Lucio Rovati, founder and CEO of Rottapharm Biotech, a leading figure in the Italian and international pharmaceutical industry.

The investment, made through the holding company Fidim to which Rottapharm Biotech belongs, represents an important step forward in Neomatrix's growth path and goes beyond financial support: Lucio Rovati will also make available to the company the experience and skills of the Rottapharm Biotech team, with particular experience in the clinical and regulatory development of innovative therapies. The goal is to accelerate the entry into clinical trials of Neo-Lin, the personalized therapeutic vaccine developed by Neomatrix, initially intended for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

"We are extremely happy and excited about this new collaboration with Lucio Rovati, who represents an extraordinarily valuable strategic partner for us," says Luigi Aurisicchio, CEO and co-founder of Neomatrix. "With Takis and Rottapharm Biotech, we have gained fundamental experience in the development of COVID-eVax, one of the first DNA vaccines against COVID-19 to make it to clinical trials, successfully completing a Phase I study. This experience is now integrated with the highly specialized skills of the Neomatrix team in immuno-oncology, neoantigen selection and the development of personalized vaccines. With the entry of Rottapharm Biotech, we can count on the already consolidated complementarity of skills, which is particularly important in the transition phase from research to clinical. Our goal is to start the first clinical trial of Neo-Lin in 2027, bringing to patients an innovative technology born and developed in Italy."

The investment comes at a particularly significant time for the cancer immunotherapy industry. The recent positive results of the Phase III study conducted by Moderna and Merck/MSD with a personalized mRNA vaccine against tumor neoantigens, in combination with pembrolizumab in the adjuvant treatment of surgically resected melanoma, represent a breakthrough for the entire industry, confirming the clinical potential of this new class of therapies.

"We are living in a historic moment for personalized cancer vaccines," says Fabio Palombo, CSO and co-founder of Neomatrix. "The Phase III results from Moderna and Merck represent a fundamental confirmation of the therapeutic potential of vaccines directed against tumor neoantigens. It is the demonstration that a complex approach developed through more than a decade of scientific research can translate into a concrete clinical benefit for patients. Neomatrix fits into this scenario with a platform that combines proprietary machine learning-based therapeutic target identification technologies with fully synthetic DNA vaccines, offering interesting prospects in terms of speed, flexibility and sustainability of production. Our preclinical results encourage us to continue with determination towards the clinical validation of this platform."

Neomatrix's technology integrates advanced bioinformatics and machine learning algorithms with a synthetic DNA production platform, with the aim of developing affordable and sustainable personalized cancer vaccines for the national health system. This approach aims to expand the number of tumor neoantigens that can be used as vaccine targets, also enhancing those that may escape conventional methods of selection, and to stimulate immune responses against a greater number of tumor-specific targets.

"Our group has decided to invest in Neomatrix because I deeply believe in the quality of its research, in the solidity of its team and in the potential of this technology," says Lucio Rovati, founder and CEO of Rottapharm Biotech. "Personalized medicine, and in particular therapeutic vaccines against cancer, represents one of the most promising frontiers of pharmaceutical innovation. Our contribution will not only be financial: we want to make available to Neomatrix the wealth of scientific, clinical and industrial expertise that we have built up over decades of developing new drugs, supporting management in the next stages of growth. We are especially excited about the possibility of contributing to bringing an original technology to the clinic, a personalized cancer vaccine born in Italy, with the ambition of offering new therapeutic opportunities to patients and enhancing the excellence of biotechnological research in our country."

The entry of Lucio Rovati and Rottapharm Biotech therefore strengthens Neomatrix's path towards clinical trials and confirms the growing interest in technologies that combine immunotherapy, genomics and precision medicine, contributing to the creation of an Italian oncology innovation supply chain.