Gaithersburg, USA and LUND, Sweden, 11 November 2025 – Nygen Analytics AB, a pioneer in AI-powered single-cell analysis technology, announced today it has been awarded a 1 million SEK (~ $105,000) grant from Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency, to develop AI-driven predictive models for cancer immunotherapy. The 12-month project, conducted in partnership with U.S.-basedVLP Therapeutics, Inc., aims to predict which viral payloads will effectively activate anti-tumor immunity in specific patients, addressing a critical challenge that currently leads to costly trial-and-error approaches in treatment selection.
The collaboration builds on a successful initial collaboration that resulted in a preprint publication in August 2025 (Ishikawa et al., bioRxiv), where Nygen's technology helped identify critical immune cell dynamics. VLP subsequentlyinitiated a Phase 1 clinical trial (NCT06736379) at Stanford Medicine in August2025 using its proprietary viral vector technology for drug delivery.
"It is a true privilege to further advance this joint project, as our collaboration with Nygen has already yielded valuable insights into our proprietary virus replicon particle (VRP) technology, which I believe holds great promise for enhancing the efficacy of current cancer immunotherapies," said Dr. Wataru Akahata, CEO of VLP Therapeutics. This grant allows us to deepen understanding of our cancer therapeutics used in clinical practice and gain insights for the development of more effective treatments and supports Nygen in advancing the frontier of single-cell RNA sequencing. Together, we are taking a step toward realizing AI-powered cancer immunotherapy without borders."
The Vinnova grant recognizes the potential of combining computational biology with clinical development to accelerate precision medicine.
"This grant from Vinnova validates our approach to making precision cancer treatment a reality through AI," said Parashar Dhapola, CEO of Nygen Analytics. "Our collaboration with VLP demonstrates how Swedish innovation in AI and data science can combine with US clinical infrastructure to accelerate therapeutic development. We're building the technology that will help match the right therapy to the right patient from the start, potentially saving years in treatment development and improving patient outcomes."
Single-cell RNA sequencing provides unprecedented resolution by profiling individual cells, revealing the cellular heterogeneity critical for understanding why certain therapies work in some patients but not others. However, analyzing this complex data requires sophisticated AI approaches. Nygen's proprietary platform identifies rare disease-driving cell states and dynamic transitions that are crucial for predicting therapeutic response insights that could help pharmaceutical companies develop more effective treatments and reduce the high failure rates in early drug development. This Vinnova-funded project will support extending the capabilities and applications of Nygen’s predictive models to VLP proprietary preclinical and clinical stage datasets.
Founded in 2022 and based in Medicon Village, Lund, Sweden, Nygen Analytics develops AI-powered precision cell annotation technology for single-cell transcriptomics. Nygen’s platform leverages multi-agent AI systems to identify cell states and populations that conventional analysis methods miss, enabling researchers to extract deeper biological insights from complex datasets. Nygen has established academic partnerships with over 10 universities globally, and holds a patent-pending portfolio on its core algorithms. For more information, visit www.nygen.io.
VLP Therapeutics, Inc. (VLPT), co-founded in 2013 by Drs. Wataru Akahata, Ryuji Ueno, and Sachiko Kuno, is a Maryland, US-based biotech company with a mission to address unmet medical needs worldwide and expand the frontiers of prophylactic and therapeutic immunotherapy. VLPT is currently engaged in research and development of cancer treatment as well as infectious disease prevention. The company's lead candidate, VLPONC-01, entered Phase 1 trials in August 2025 at Stanford Medicine. For more information, visit www.vlptherapeutics.com.
Sukhitha Basnayake
Nygen Analytics AB
Sukhitha.basnayake@nygen.io
Yutaka Iijima, Director of Global Communications and IR
VLP Therapeutics, Inc.
info@vlptherapeutics.com
This project is supported by Vinnova (Swedish Innovation Agency) under the "Deepened collaboration with USA, UK and Singapore within Health andLife Science" program.
