Prokarium raises $30M, pushes new bacteria immunotherapy for bladder cancer to clinic

09 Feb 2023
endpts.com
ImmunotherapyVaccineExecutive Change
UK biotech Prokarium has raised $30 million as it heads toward the clinic with a Salmonella immunotherapy for bladder cancer, where it hopes to challenge a decades-long standard of care known as Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, or BCG. Prokarium CEO Kristen Albright told Endpoints News the raise would go toward two projects: the bladder cancer program, as well as a second on RNA therapies delivered via the Salmonella platform, where the biotech has recently partnered with Ginkgo Bioworks. Prokarium is planning an early-stage dose escalation trial of its treatment for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, NMIBC, and it hopes to start the trial in the US in the second half of the year. Albright said the biotech’s therapy requires fewer rounds of treatment than BCG, which is given once a week for six weeks, followed by additional maintenance therapy. Albright said Prokarium’s Salmonella treatment comes as a single initial dose followed by several booster doses. “Not many competitors are actually going after the BCG market, although we believe the bacteria component will remain the standard of care in the bladder cancer field even with new therapies coming to market. We think it’s a key mechanism required for the advanced immunotherapies to work in combination, so it’s not just going to be a monotherapy,” Albright said. Others, like CG Oncology and Patrick Soon Shiong’s ImmunityBio, are also trying to go after NMIBC with experimental cancer treatments. CG is testing an oncolytic virus treatment in combination with Keytruda in patients who don’t respond to BCG. “If you look at PD-1 or even the IL-15 superagonist with ImmunityBio — they all require a combination with BCG, but nobody has tackled that market yet. So our aim is not only to be an alternative to BCG, but also shift the treatment paradigm by actually requiring less dosing and really making a commercially attractive product for urologists and patients alike,” Albright added. Prokarium’s last funding round closed in October 2020, when it raised a $21 million Series B. Albright was promoted to CEO in mid-2021, and led the biotech as it transitioned away from its vaccine work to focus on cancer. Albright declined to disclose the investors in the round, which she said was not a Series C. In its partnership with Ginkgo that was announced last month, Prokarium hopes to engineer its Salmonella platform to deliver RNA therapies for cancer. Albright said that unlike current methods of delivery, which are inert, the bacteria bring an immunotherapy component along with it.
For more details,please visit the original website
The content of the article does not represent any opinions of Synapse and its affiliated companies. If there is any copyright infringement or error, please contact us, and we will deal with it within 24 hours.
Organizations
Indications
Targets
Drugs
Chat with Hiro
Get started for free today!
Accelerate Strategic R&D decision making with Synapse, PatSnap’s AI-powered Connected Innovation Intelligence Platform Built for Life Sciences Professionals.
Start your data trial now!
Synapse data is also accessible to external entities via APIs or data packages. Empower better decisions with the latest in pharmaceutical intelligence.