A spin-out of a successful life sciences company in the UK aims to look specifically at finding new treatments for cancer.
NeoPhore has been created by Cambridge-based PhoreMost and is being backed by the CRT Pioneer Fund, which has provided financial support to get NeoPhore off the ground, the Cambridge News revealed.
In total, £3 million has been invested by the CRT Pioneer Fund in the new venture. NeoPhore has been established specifically to focus on the “discovery and development of novel small molecule therapies to treat cancer through stimulation of the immune system”.
Chris Torrance, CEO and founder of PhoreMost, commented: “NeoPhore’s target rationale has already been proven directly in cancer patients treated with immunotherapy, providing a particularly strong basis for developing novel drugs.”
Through its work, Neophore will be focusing on two outcomes – to boost cancer immunity among patients with unresponsive, immunologically ‘cold’ tumors; and to improve responses among patients who are already eligible for immunotherapy treatments for their cancer.
There is much work being done in the area of cancer immunotherapy at present, with Roche recently reporting positive results in its Phase III clinical trial of immune system boosting drug Tecentriq, which was given alongside chemo and the firm’s older drug Avastin, Reuters reported.
During the trial, the company showed that this combination delayed lung cancer progression, and this is the first time that mixing chemo with new immunotherapy treatments has been validated in a large Phase III clinical trial.
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