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news.Aspyrian Therapeutics, a clinical stage drug development company creating precision-targeted therapies to treat cancer based on its Photoimmunotherapy platform, has secured $40m as part of a Series B financing.
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The Series B financing was provided by Hiroshi Mikitani through his personal investment companies. Hiroshi Mikitani is the CEO of Rakuten, Inc., one of the world’s leading internet e-commerce and service companies headquartered in Japan.
Hiroshi Mikitani is also a Director of Aspyrian Therapeutics’ board. This financing will accelerate clinical development efforts of the antibody conjugate RM-1929 towards approval and commercialization in recurrent head and neck cancer as well as other cancer areas.
Aspyrian Therapeutics president and CEO Miguel Garcia-Guzman said: "We are honored to have the support from Hiroshi Mikitani and share a common vision to provide cancer patients with novel targeted approaches to battle and conquer their disease. We believe that RM-1929, a first-in-class drug emerging from our proprietary precision targeted cancer therapy platform, Photoimmunotherapy, has the potential to transform the standard of care of a number of cancer areas.
"I congratulate our team for their excellent work to enable the rapid progression of RM-1929 through clinical studies.".
"This funding will not only allow us to complete our Phase I/II clinical trials and proceed to registration trials for recurrent head and neck cancer, but importantly will allow us to evaluate the efficacy of RM-1929 to treat, control and potentially cure other cancers that have failed standard of care treatment," said Merrill Biel, M.D. Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of Aspyrian Therapeutics Inc.
The Series B financing will also support the expansion of R&D activities, including progression of additional drugs into the clinic to expand the pipeline and the development of novel immunotherapy approaches.
"We are exploring new methods to engage and activate the immune system which, in conjunction with Photoimmunotherapy, may result in a unique immunotherapy approach to safely and effectively treat both localized and metastatic cancers," said Miguel Garcia-Guzman, Ph.D.