Prokarium, a London, UK-based biotechnology company, received £4.59m in funding.
The Wellcome Trust made the investment.
The company intends to use the capital to fund two clinical trials of its lead programme, Entervax™, a bivalent vaccine against enteric fever.
Led by Ted Fjallman, Ph.D, Chief Executive Officer, Prokarium is a biotechnology company developing microbial immunotherapies and vaccines. The company’s vaccines are designed to generate broad immune responses including mucosal, systemic and cellular immunity. They are provided as a convenient oral capsule or as a sachet for young children, rather than requiring injection.
Prokarium’s development programs include microbial immunotherapies for the treatment of solid tumours, as well as other oral vaccines that are designed to protect against Chlamydia trachomatis and Yersinia pestis, the latter being developed with the UK government.
Entervax, based on the Vaxonella® platform, is the combination of Prokarium’s proprietary strain ZH9 (Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi ZH9), which has been safely administered to 351 individuals including 101 children in the UK, US and Vietnam, plus a novel strain modified to express antigens specific to Salmonella Paratyphi A.
The funding from Wellcome will be used for a Phase 1 study in the UK and a Phase 1b age-descending, dose-escalation study in an endemic region in South Asia. The Phase 1 study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study designed to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the bivalent vaccine. The company plans to initiate dosing in the first half 2020.
FinSMEs
08/10/2019