PhotonPharma raises $2.5M for ovarian cancer drug clinical trial

FORT COLLINS — PhotonPharma Inc., which specializes in tumor-specific immune therapies, recently closed a $2.5 million seed financing round to help fund the first phase of a clinical trial for Innocell, an ovarian cancer drug candidate. 

The fundraiser comes on the heels of a February clearance from the  U.S. Food and Drug Administration to move forward with the study of the autologous cell-based vaccine therapy for patients with stage III/IV ovarian cancer.

The study is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year.

“This funding is a significant milestone for PhotonPharma and marks a pivotal moment in our mission to advance breakthrough therapies for cancer therapies,” PhotonPharma chairman Terry Opgenorth said in a prepared statement. “We are excited to move forward with our clinical trials and are grateful for the support of our investors, whose confidence will help drive the development of our technology platform forward.”

The vaccine therapy used in the study will be manufactured at the City of Hope Cancer Care center in Los Angeles. 

“This therapeutic approach employs inactivated tumor cells, prepared by a proprietary process based on UV light and riboflavin, after isolation of the cells from a patient’s tumor.  These inactivated cells are used in a treatment designed to recruit the patient’s own immune system to fight the cancer,” PhotonPharma said in a February news release.