UK – Prokarium, a London, UK-based biopharmaceutical company which specializes in the oncology field of microbial immunotherapy, raised $30M in funding.
The backers were not disclosed.The company intends to use the funds for clinical development of its oncology candidate in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer and accelerate platform discovery. Led by CEO Kristen Albright, Prokarium focuses has a pipeline designed to unlock a new generation of immuno-oncology therapeutics by re-engineering evolution into a synthetic biology platform. Prokarium’s lead program has the potential to transform the treatment paradigm in bladder cancer, one of the costliest cancers to treat, in its efforts to become the new standard-of-care in a market that has seen little innovation in over 30 years and to offer advanced therapies an alternative to Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). The company’s pipeline leverages evolutionary advantages of a proprietary strain of Salmonella and combines them with bespoke synthetic circuits to deliver diverse therapeutic cargo for difficult-to-treat cancers.This follows Prokarium’s announcement of partnering with Ginkgo Bioworks to leverage its Foundry and extensive Codebase to develop a bactofection platform technology. In addition to the financing, Prokarium has announced the addition of two scientific advisors, Professor Adrian Hayday, PhD and Sam Chang, MD, MBA.09/02/2023
