Philogen S.p.A (or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on antibody-based therapeutics, today is pleased to announce a €62 million financing round from current and new private investors. The €62 million financing will be used to progress Philogen’s wholly-owned pipeline products through clinical development and provide working capital whilst the bulk of the pipeline continues to progress in partnership with large pharmaceutical companies. The capital increase will also be used to expand Philogen’s GMP facilities, enabling large scale production of antibody products.
Philogen’s therapeutic approach is based on the antibody-mediated delivery of bioactive payloads to the site of disease helping spare normal tissues. In particular, cytokine payloads hold promises for treatment of serious conditions, through a selective modulation of immune system activity. The disease targeting ability of Philogen’s antibodies, that recognize specific targets expressed in the majority of solid and liquid malignancies, have been extensively validated with nuclear medicine techniques in patients with cancer.
The Company currently has two products in Phase III development for oncological indications. Daromun is being investigated for the treatment of fully resectable Stage III B / C melanoma while Fibromun is being studied in metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. The pipeline is complemented by other products that are in Phase I or Phase II clinical trials.
In addition to its validating partnerships with big pharma, Philogen has a robust IP position with more than 40 international patent families and is a fully integrated company from discovery to GMP manufacturing and clinical trial execution.
Philogen also today announces the appointment of three new board members, Dr. Guido Guidi previously Head of Oncology Europe at Novartis, Dr. Roberto Marsella previously Director of Investments of Fondo Strategico Italiano / CDP Equity, now with Generali, and Dr. Roberto Ferraresi previously partner of PAI partners and currently CEO of The Equity Club.
“Philogen uses state of the art discovery technology to innovate ligand based pharmacodelivery and is committed to the engineering of superior antibody cytokine fusions.” said Dr. Duccio Neri, Chief Executive Officer of Philogen. “This financing will help us execute our strategy and develop innovative biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases which urgently better therapeutic modalities. We welcome our three new Board members to Philogen and look forward to their valuable contributions at this exciting time in our Company’s evolution.”
Leopoldo Zambeletti acted as advisor to Philogen in the financing.
About Philogen
Philogen is a clinical-stage biotechnology company engaged in the discovery and development of novel biopharmaceutical products. Philogen’s strategy is to deliver bioactive agents, for example cytokines or drugs to the site of disease using antibodies and ligands that specifically and efficiently target stromal antigens. This technology has generated a strong proprietary pipeline of clinical-stage products and also pre-clinical compounds in an array of disease indications. Philogen is headquartered in Siena, Italy, and has research activities at its subsidiary company Philochem in Zürich, Switzerland. Philogen is independently owned and has signed agreements with several major pharmaceutical companies. For more information, please visit www.philogen.com.