Pharmaceutical Business review

Inspirna raises funds to advance clinical stage cancer drugs development

Inspirna will use the funds to advance the clinical development of RGX-202 and RGX-104 cancer drug candidates. Credit: Inspirna.

New investors Sands Capital and Vivo Capital have jointly led the financing round, which has also seen participation from new investor Dreavent 6.

Sofinnova Partners, New York City Investment Fund, Sixty Degree Capital Fund, Novo, and Lepu are some of the existing investors who have also participated in the financing round.

Inspirna intends to use the funds for advancing the clinical development of its lead drug candidate RGX-202-01 (RGX-202), and RGX-104.

RGX-202 is a first-in-class oral small molecule SLC6a8 inhibitor that has been developed to treat RAS mutant advanced colorectal cancer (CRC).

The company will use the funds to further assess RGX-202’s safety and efficacy for the second-line treatment of RAS mutant CRC in an ongoing Phase Ib clinical trial.

RGX-104 is an oral small molecule activator of LXR/APOE that has been developed for the treatment of lung cancer and endometrial cancer.

Currently, the drug candidate being evaluated in combination with the standard-of-care therapy docetaxel in a Phase Ib/II clinical trial for the second line treatment of advanced small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients.

It is also being assessed along with the standard-of-care regimen pembrolizumab, carboplatin, and pemetrexed for the first line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients whose tumours are negative for the PD-L1 biomarker expression.

Inspirna co-founder and CEO Masoud Tavazoie said: “We are currently evaluating RGX-202 and RGX-104 in clinical trials in high unmet medical need settings and, with renewed support from our investors, are now well-positioned to further build on the promising efficacy signals and safety profiles for these drug candidates.”