BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - BT Pharma SA has raised a €1.3 million (US$1.7 million) bridge finance facility from existing shareholders and an unnamed new investor.

The funds will enable the company to move its lead product, ProCervix, a therapeutic vaccine for the treatment of high-grade neoplasia caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), through preclinical development and into Phase I /II clinical trials.

BT Pharma, of Toulouse, France, was founded in October 2001 as a spinout from the Institut Pasteur, and moved into its current facilities a year later. Since its creation, it has raised a total of €3.8 million from its founders, business angels, the Institut Pasteur and FAM-Midi-Pyrénées, a Toulouse-based venture capital fund.

The company is developing a range of therapeutic vaccines to treat HPV-related infections, dysplasia and cancers. ProCervix is a bivalent vaccine that exploits the unique characteristics of the adenylate cyclase vector (CyaA), which delivers tumor cell-specific antigens to antigen-presenting cells in patients in vivo and induces strong and specific cellular immune responses.

The vaccine, which is being developed to treat cervical neoplasia and cancer provoked by HPV16 and HPV18, is designed to be an alternative to ablative surgery in millions of women already infected by HPV and at risk of invasive cervical cancer. The CyaA technology, which has unique immune cell-targeting features, was developed by the Institut Pasteur, and BT Pharma has an exclusive license for its use.

CEO Benedikt Timmerman explained that the planned clinical trial would take place in the first quarter of 2008 and would involve women suffering from CIN II/CIN III lesions.

"The awareness of the medical need to treat infection, neoplasia and cancer provoked by human papilloma virus by other means than surgery has come of age and coincides well with our clinical timelines," he said.