Misgav Technology Center cancer treatment portfolio company Immunovative Therapies Ltd. has raised $500,000 at a company value of $17 million, before money, from private investors. Dr. Malcolm Currie, a former US under secretary of defense for R&D and chairman and CEO of Hughes Aircraft Company, led the round and has been appointed a director of the company. Most of the other investors were associates of his. The company also appointed Dr. Ronald Hart, a former senior official at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as chairman.
Immunovative is developing a biopharmaceutical, Allostim, which activates the immune system to fight cancer. The company isolates certain T cells from the blood of healthy donors of all blood types, and implants them into the patient. Allostim stimulates the immune system and allows it to identify the cancerous cells it needs to attack and to destroy them effectively, bypassing the cancer cells’ defenses. A side effect of the treatment is a strengthening of the patient’s immune system.
The treatment is intended to replace bone marrow transplants. Its advantages are the elimination of the need to search for compatible donors, because it does not require tissue-typing and matching, and avoids toxic side-effects, which are fatal to more than 50% of transplant recipients.
Immunovative CEO Dr. Michael Har-Noy founded the company in 2004. It has raised $1 million to date from the Office of the Chief Scientist and Trendlines International Ltd., which manages Misgav. The company hopes to expand the present round to $3 million over the coming months, probably from private investors.
Immunovative is now preparing an application to the FDA for Phase I and II human clinical trials. The company has signed a cooperation agreement with Endocare, Inc., which controls some 80% of the US market in cryoablation (the use of liquid nitrogen to freeze solid tumors), and with Pioneer Memorial Hospital in California. These agreements guarantee full funding of the Phase I/II clinical trials, which are expected to involve more than 200 patients.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on March 4, 2007
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