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24 June, 2004

Proacta Inc, Anti-Cancer Start Up, Raises $US8 in Series A

Proacta Inc., an oncology drug discovery company targeting solid tumor hypoxia, has raised $8 million Series A finance.

The company raised the funds from an international syndicate led by GBS Venture Partners, Australia. Other members of the syndicate are Genentech Inc and Roche, based in the United States and Switzerland, and No 8 Ventures Management Ltd and Endeavour I-Cap in New Zealand. Proacta is a drug development company focusing on novel therapies for hypoxic (oxygen-starved) tumors based on technology from the University of Auckland and Stanford University. The company is incorporated in Delaware with preclinical operations in Auckland, Palo Alto and Melbourne.

Tumor hypoxia is a condition that exists in the majority of solid tumors and makes treatment with conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy less likely to succeed. Proacta has developed a unique portfolio of molecules which are selectively active in hypoxic tissue. This funding will be used initially to develop and protect the company's intellectual property, hire staff and take new anticancer drugs into clinical trial in humans. It will support preclinical safety toxicology, manufacturing and formulation activities, in addition to phase I clinical trials in oncology.

The founding scientists, Professors Bill Denny and Bill Wilson at the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre, at The University of Auckland (ACSRC), and Professors Martin Brown and Amato Giacca at the Division of Radiation and Cancer Biology and the Department of Radiation Oncology at Stanford University, are world leading authorities in the field of tumor hypoxia.

Professor Wilson said their team had developed several novel compounds with outstanding effectiveness in destroying cancer cells in human tumors in laboratory tests. "This funding will be used initially to take new anticancer drugs through preclinical development and into clinical trial in humans." Proacta's portfolio includes a family of improved analogues of tirapazamine, a compound currently in Phase III clinical trials by Sanofi.

"This is a very exciting day for us. Proacta is a company that has the potential to provide a new treatment for a very large proportion of people with cancer," Wilson said. "The majority of people who are diagnosed with cancer each year have significant areas of cells that are deprived of oxygen in their tumors. We have produced compounds designed to specifically attack these cancers," he said.

Using "prodrugs" that remain inert until "switched on" in the hypoxic regions of tumors, Proacta's compounds have the potential to destroy cancer cells while leaving healthy tissues untouched. Wilson said it had long been known that targeting hypoxic cells had the potential to make both chemotherapy and radiation treatment very much more effective. There was also mounting evidence that hypoxia may be a predictor for aggressive and rapidly progressing tumors, but to date treatments that effectively reached and destroyed hypoxic tumor cells had been elusive.

"Like most oncology therapies, hypoxia-specific anti-cancer products will normally be administered in combination with other treatments. We are developing our drugs in combination with current chemotherapy and radiotherapy as well as new treatments, including those based on angiogenesis which may enhance tumor-specific hypoxia and show synergistic effects with our compounds. Proacta's new products have the potential to do what other therapies generally fail to do — and that is to kill hypoxic cancer cells," he said.

Proacta draws on a broad portfolio of IP across 9 chemical families. Ongoing development of the portfolio is supported significant grant funding and led by acknowledged international experts in the field at Auckland and Stanford Universities. Proacta's strong IP and ongoing research activities in hypoxia-related cancer therapies give it a leadership position in meeting a substantial unmet need for the large and growing oncology market.