By Allan Maurer

DURHAM, NC–Pique Therapeutics has raised more than $500,000 of a $600,000 round for its first-in-class vaccine therapies focused initially on deadly non-small cell lung cancer. Pique CEO Christopher Meldrum declined to discuss details but tells TechJournal South the company will issue a news release about the funding in a week or so.

The company disclosed the funding in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fact that the company plans a news release suggests the round may be closed or near closing. According to the filing, the company has raised $535,000 of the $600,000 sought.

In a previous interview with TechJournal South, Meldrum said, that a small Phase I trial of the company’s lead vaccine aimed at NSCLC looked at 19 patients with very late stage disease.

Average survival time for these patients is four to six months and even the best drugs currently on the market extend that only by a few months.

Early stage trials primarily test safety, in which the Pique vaccine, which is not a cell-killer (cytotoxic) like most chemotherapy drugs, was well tolerated.

But, it also showed strong efficacy, with over a 100 percent improvement in median survival to 11 months. “So far as we know, that kind of improvement has never been seen in clinical trials of drugs for NSCLC,” Meldrum said.

The company’s therapeutic vaccine, developed by Eckhard R. Podack, M.D., Ph.D, chair of the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Miami, stimulates patients’ immune systems to attack their cancer.

Some cancers, including several of the most deadly, block immune system assaults. Podack theorized that tumors never exposed to immune system killer cells might be the most susceptible to a vaccine that primed the body to assault it with killer T-cells and early tests appear to bear out that theory.

Meldrum is also managing director of Golden Pine Ventures, which originally seed-funded the company. He said in the previous interview that Pique would seek an A round of from $3 million to $5 million.

Founded in 2005, the company was one of 2008′s TechJournal Tech 50 companies.

Online: www.piquetherapeutics.com

Previously on TechJournal South:

Pique Therapeutics vaccines attack aggressive cancers

http://tiny.pl/3chq

Southeast Venture Conference, February 29 – March 1, 2012 at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner, VA – Where Smart Money Meets Smart People.
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