PolyTherics raises £3m to fund PEG expansion
pharmafile | February 17, 2010 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | PolyTherics, biotech, pegylation
UK drug delivery specialist PolyTherics has raised an additional £3 million in funding as it extends the focus of its PEGylation technology for biologic drugs.
PolyTherics, which was a spin-out from Imperial College London in 2002, built its business on TheraPEG, a PEGylation technology which involves coupling a polyethylene glycol (PEG) structure to a therapeutic protein, helping to reduce the time it takes for the protein to leave the body.
Most traditional techniques involve amine PEGylation where the PEG is attached to free amines on the protein and this underpins several marketed pharmaceutical products with sales measured in the billions of dollars a year.
TheraPEG attaches the PEG via disulphide bonds, which have fewer sites, producing a more pure product with a higher yield and a simpler process.
Sanofi-Aventis subsidiary Shantha Biotechnics has already licensed TheraPEG for an unidentified product, and the resulting therapeutic is currently being developed for clinical trials.
Meanwhile, PolyTherics has signed three separate product-partnerships with privately-owned drugmaker Celtic Pharma and other deals with Minapharm and Alligator Bioscience.
The latest round of financing will be used to advance two other PEGylation technologies, namely HiPEG and CyPEG which will extend the use of PEGylation to “virtually any biologic drug candidate for therapeutic use,” according to the firm’s chef executive Keith Powell.
The intention is to use these other platforms alongside novel peptides and proteins as potential ‘biobetter’ products, said the firm in a statement.
Imperial Innovations, the venture capital arm of Imperial College, led the investment with a £2 million injection of funds, with Longbow Capital and The Capital Fund putting up the remainder of the stake.
The same organisations invested £2.3m in the company in June 2007. Imperial Innovations has boosted its stake in PolyTherics from 19% to 35% as a result of the latest investment round.
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