MONTREAL, May 18 /PRNewswire/ - Allostera Pharma, a privately held company focusing on the discovery and development of allosteric (ant)agonists to growth factor and cytokine receptors is proud to announce the closing of a final round of seed financing with the participation of CQVB (Centre Quebecois de Valorisation des Biotechnologies) and Valorisation HSJ, limited partnership acting through its general partner Gestion Univalor, limited partnership.
This latest round of seed financing will allow the company to continue its pre-clinical work on a number of compound discovered through its proprietary Module X Technology (R) for the rational design of small focused peptide libraries of allosteric, non-competitive (ant)agonists to growth factors and cytokine receptors. This unique platform has generated highly specific peptides with average positive hit rates of 20-50%. This approach allows the Company to perform very rapid and inexpensive in-vivo proof-of- concept studies on disease-relevant receptors.
One of its lead compounds, targeting the IGF-1R receptor has demonstrated a very potent biological profile in a number of human cancer cell lines with no cross-reaction to the insulin receptor. In addition, it has demonstrated multiple mechanisms of action as anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic agents in animal studies. The IGF-1R is a drug target with enormous industry interest and has been dubbed “the next EGF receptor”.
Dr Sylvain Chemtob, Chief scientific Officer and co-founder of Allostera Pharma is an internationally respected authority on lipid mediators in vaso- occlusive and proliferative neuro-retinopathies. Affiliated with the research center of St Justine Hospital in Montreal, Dr. Chemtob is a serial entrepreneur who has a solid track record with founding and selling a start-up company and licensing technology to industry. “This latest round of funding cumulating to more than $2,1M invested so far towards the development of our technologies, is another confirmation of the confidence expressed in the market potential of our unique approach.” declared Dr Chemtob.
Maurice JP Piche, newly appointed President & CEO of Allostera Pharma expressed his pride in being associated with such a world-class scientific research group and feel confident to lead the next financing round of a serie “A” of $4 millions allowing the company to finalize its GLP pre-clinical and file for an IND within the next 18 months. “We have a unique opportunity to create substantial plus value for our shareholders by pursuing the clinical development our lead compounds until the end of Phase II and then signing with a strategic partner. We also have a very powerful and efficient discovery platform in Module X Technology(R) allowing us to develop and license other compounds for other clinically validated receptors targeting cancer, inflammatory and ocular diseases or other therapeutic targets besides HCC (Hepato-carcimona) for the IGF-1R lead peptides.” said Maurice JP Piche when questioned on the development strategy of the company.
Allostera Pharma will be looking for an investment of $7 million in two rounds, a Series A of $4 million and a Series B of $3 million, to allow the Company to pursue its pre-clinical GLP works, complete phase I studies and begin phase II. One of the major North American CRO has designed a pre- clinical plan confirming the feasibility of the project. The “lean” structure of a virtual company initially, will allows for a concentration of resources focusing on the development of the technologies.
For more information: Maurice JP Piche, President & CEO Tel: (514) 745-4029 mpiche@allosterapharma.com Dr Sylvain Chemtob, CSO & Co-founder schemtob@allosterapharma.com
Allostera Pharma
CONTACT: Maurice JP Piche, President & CEO, (514) 745-4029,mpiche@allosterapharma.com; Dr Sylvain Chemtob, CSO & Co-founder,schemtob@allosterapharma.com
