BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Cytheris SA completed a series B financing in which it raised €24.3 million from seven European and Canadian venture capital funds.

They included two first-time investors: CDC Entreprises Innovation, of Paris, which led the round, and ABN AMRO Capital Life Sciences, of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The company's five existing investors also participated: AXA Private Equity, Bioam and Crédit Agricole Private Equity, all of Paris, and T2C2/Bio and Caisse de Dép t et Placement du Québec, both of Canada.

Those funds already had invested €7 million (US$8.9 million) in Cytheris in its initial funding round in 2002. Cytheris, which was founded in 1999, is based in Paris and has a U.S. subsidiary in Rockville, Md. It employs about 20 people.

The company's CEO, Michel Morre, told BioWorld International that there were no major variations in investments by each participant, although ABN AMRO announced a contribution of €4 million. Morre added that AXA Private Equity remains the largest shareholder.

With a burn rate of about €100,000 a month, Morre said the funds should see the company through to mid-2009, when it hopes to have completed Phase II trials of its lead compound and to have negotiated a profitable partnering deal with big pharma.

Cytheris is developing new compounds to rebuild the immune system or enhance global and specific immune system activity in patients suffering from diseases such as cancer and HIV/HCV. Its lead product is a recombinant interleukin-7 (rIL-7), a growth factor for immune T cells, which is being tested in a series of Phase I/II trials in France and the U.S.

Morre said two trials had been completed in oncology, while another two in HIV were under way and would be completed by the year end. In addition, a pilot Phase I trial in hepatitis C is to be carried out to test the responsiveness of patients who are resistant to treatments such as interferon.

Morre said the trials have confirmed the "excellent clinical tolerance and impressive activity" of IL-7, and said "our understanding is that most active or passive immunotherapies for life-threatening diseases will need the indispensable support of IL-7 to make a large number of T lymphocytes available for therapeutic responses."

Phase II trials are scheduled for October 2007 in HIV and hepatitis.

"As regards cancer, we will see," Morre said, adding that "resources are limited." But he pointed out that the company was engaged in a collaboration with the National Cancer Institute in the U.S., suggesting that the NIC might share the costs of Phase II trials of IL-7 in oncology.

Morre anticipated that a single post-Phase II license agreement will be concluded with a pharmaceutical company covering all indications of IL-7.

In addition, Cytheris is developing a second family of products based on NKT ligands in-licensed from New York University, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the City University of New York in May 2005. Morre explained that the program was focused on complex glycolipids that act on dendritic cells to liberate IL-12 and interferon gamma.

The company is developing the product as an adjuvant to therapeutic vaccines for cancer and viral infections. While pointing out that it was a secondary program to IL-7, Morre said Cytheris would be open to concluding one or possibly several licenses for it after the Phase I trial stage.