New targeted anti-cancer therapy lights up investors
PhotoBiotics is pleased to announce the completion of a further funding round to support development of its innovative technology for targeting light-activated anti-cancer drugs to tumours. Following its successful bid for €300,000 of EU funding, the Imperial College London-based spin-out company has just acquired additional funds from a consortium which includes two new investors.
The new financing round comes hot on the heels of PhotoBiotics' latest research results, which show that special tumour-seeking proteins (antibody fragments) deliver light-activated drugs specifically to cancer targets. When illuminated, they cause complete and selective tumour regression in an animal model (published on-line in the International Journal of Cancer).
In photodynamic therapy (PDT), diseased tissues containing light-activated drugs are illuminated with cold laser light. The resulting chain reaction converts oxygen into a highly toxic form that destroys any cells in close proximity.
PDT has successfully treated head and neck, prostate and skin cancers. Compared to other cancer treatments, PDT leaves patients with little cosmetic scarring and there is no possibility of drug resistance developing. But being non-targeted, PDT cannot deliver light-activated drugs specifically to tumours: they can circulate in the body long after treatment, leaving patients prone to acute light-sensitised skin damage.
PhotoBiotics latest proprietary research solves this problem. Called targeted PDT (t-PDT), drugs go specifically to cancerous cells, rapidly leaving the body before they can cause skin damage. Based on its initial highly promising results in animals, PhotoBiotics is completing further pre-clinical studies, and expects to take its technology forward into clinical trials within the next three years, expanding the applications of t-PDT for many more cancers.
On the latest investment, Dr Elizabeth Rollinson, PhotoBiotics' Commercial Director said, "This confirms that our new t-PDT approach is beginning to attract the funding it deserves to make it into a mainstream clinical reality, and we are excited that PhotoBiotics is in the vanguard of developing this innovative technology. The funding round will allow PhotoBiotics to attain value-enhancing milestones in its therapeutic and diagnostic research and development programmes."
For more information on PhotoBiotics' financing, please contact:
Dr Elizabeth Rollinson
Mob: +44 (0)7771 870410.
Email: liz.rollinson@btinternet.com
For more information on PhotoBiotics' technology, please contact:
Dr Mahendra Deonarain
Division of Cell & Molecular Biology, Dept of Life Sciences, Biochemistry Building
Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ., UK.
Tel: (+44) (0)207 594 5318;
Fax: (+44) (0)207 594 5460.
Email: m.deonarain@imperial.ac.uk
And
Dr Lionel R Milgrom, PhotoBiotics Ltd Press Office,
c/o Department of Life Sciences, Biochemistry Building, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)208 450 8760;
Mob: +44 (0)7970 852156.
Email: mail@photobiotics.com
Notes to editors:
PhotoBiotics' latest research paper is available by clicking this link:-
'Targeted photodynamic therapy with multiply-loaded recombinant antibody fragments', International Journal of Cancer, published online 31 October 2007.
Press Releases
- PhotoBiotics' COO presents at major Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) conference in Barcelona
Date : 09 November 2011 - PhotoBiotics presents OptiLinkTM Antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) platform at World ADC Summit in San Francisco
Date : 25 October 2011 - PhotoBiotics Raises Further Funding for Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs)
Date : 11 October 2011 - PhotoBiotics' CSO hosts Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) event at Berlin Novel Protein Therapeutics Conference
Date : 27 September 2011 - A Conjugation Platform for the Targeted Delivery of Anticancer Agents
Date : 01 September 2011 - OptiLink ADC Technology Features at the 10th Annual Congress on Recombinant Antibodies
Date : 15 May 2011 - PhotoBiotics Announces Collaboration with Major Pharma Company
Date : 7 December 2010 - PhotoBiotics’ approach to Targeted Magnetic Resonance Imaging receives award from the National Institute for Health Research
Date : 6 September 2010 - Location! Location! Location! - PhotoBiotics' Key to Successful PDT
Date : 31 July 2010 - US patent granted to PhotoBiotics for new targeted cancer therapy
Date : 1 April 2010 - Targeted Photodynamic Therapy in Corfu and Wroclaw 2009
Date : 22 June 2009 - American Chemical Society Hosts Targeted Photodynamic Therapy at Salt Lake City
Date : 10 April 2009 - Patent for targeted photodynamic therapy (t-PDT) gets green light Down Under
Date : 7 October 2008 - Targeted Photodynamic Therapy (t-PDT) to light up Brixen / Bressanone Symposium
Date : 18 September 2008 - Novel Targeted Cancer Therapy on show at Dubrovnik
Date : 24 March 2008 - New targeted anti-cancer therapy lights up investors
Date : 29 January 2008 - Light-activated anti-cancer drugs on target
Date : 29 November 2007