Advancing Solid Tumor Immunotherapy: Primmune Therapeutics Raises $8.6M

San Diego-based clinical-stage biotech company Primmune Therapeutics has announced an additional close of its Series B financing round for $8.6 million, bringing the total round to $23.3 million. Investors in the round included Bioqube Ventures, Oberland Capital and Samsara Biocapital.

Primmune Therapeutics will use the funding to advance clinical testing of an oral drug designed to activate the immune system to fight solid tumors. The company plans to launch a Phase 2 study testing PRTX007 together with standard anti-PD-1 therapy in patients with Stage III melanoma that can be removed by surgery. The study will examine how well the treatment works when given before surgery. It will be conducted entirely in Australia by Primmune Therapeutics Pty Ltd. with Novotech, a contract research organization and scientific advisory firm.

“This financing enables us to rapidly advance PRTX007 into a clearly defined proof-of-principle study with validated efficacy and safety endpoints, with the goal of establishing PRTX007 as a class-leading immunotherapy option for patients with solid tumors,” said Charlie McDermott, chief executive and director of Primmune Therapeutics, in a statement.

Founded in 2017 by James Appleman, Paulo Rangel and Stephen Webber, Primmune Therapeutics designs and develops orally administered, novel small molecule, toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) agonists as immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and other diseases responsive to immunotherapy.

The tumor drug that it is testing activates the immune system in a more targeted way. It is designed to boost beneficial immune responses that help fight disease, while avoiding excessive inflammation that has limited similar treatments in the past. It has been tested in more than 100 healthy volunteers across two Phase 1 clinical studies. Results showed that it produced the intended immune response without triggering unwanted inflammation and was generally well tolerated, with no serious side effects reported.

Information for this article was sourced from Primmune Therapeutics.