The transaction supports invoX’s strategy to be a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company and its "ongoing commitment" to deliver innovative life-saving therapies
pHion is developing a pipeline of therapeutic and prophylactic vaccines focussed on oncology and infectious diseases.
The company’s proprietary RALA platform can deliver anionic molecules such as mRNA and saRNA in a stealth-like way, evading detection, to generate a potent antigen-specific CD8+ T-cell response.
The RALA peptide-based drug delivery system is based on a sequence of 30 amino acids which condenses anionic cargo, irrespective of size, into nanoparticles that are highly efficient at cellular entry and can outperform currently available technologies.
According to pHion, compared with traditional mRNA vaccine delivery platforms, RALA has the added advantage of ease of scalability and logistics, including stability at room temperature.
The additional investment will support growth of RALA, with an immediate focus on the advancement of pHion’s lead project PTX_V1 into clinical trials in the first half of 2024.
PTX_V1 is a first-in-class therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of human papilloma virus (HPV) related cancers.
“At pHion Therapeutics, it is our mission to pioneer next generation, first-in-class vaccines for infectious disease and oncology through stealth-like delivery of mRNA,” said Prof. Helen McCarthy, CEO and founder of pHion.
“With the additional support from invoX, we are set to accelerate our lead candidate, PTX_V1, to be ready for the clinic in 2024 and further develop our exciting preclinical pipeline of therapeutic and prophylactic mRNA vaccines.
“mRNA vaccines have the potential to truly transform healthcare interventions globally, and pHion will be at the forefront of this transformation, enabled by the RALA platform delivery technology.”