TcL Pharma to receive grant to research immunosuppression
French biotech TcL Pharma, which develops drugs to regulate the immune system in organ and tissue transplantation and autoimmune disease, is to receive a Euro 2.2m grant from the French National Research Agency (ANR). The company has only recently raised €1m as part of France's TEPA economic package and from institutional investors such as Algest.
French biotech TcL Pharma, which develops drugs to regulate the immune system in organ and tissue transplantation and autoimmune disease, is to receive a Euro 2.2m grant from the French National Research Agency (ANR). The company has only recently raised â"šÂ¬1m as part of France's TEPA economic package and from institutional investors such as Algest.
The TOLESTIM project (long-acting CD28 antagonists for improved tolerance in transplantation) has been selected for the grant under the ANR's collaborative research in healthcare biotech programme.
A major goal in transplantation medicine is to reduce the dose of immunosuppressants by inducing immune tolerance. In collaboration with the INSERM U643 lab (which has developed an innovative approach to immunosuppression based on selective CD28 antagonists), TcL Pharma will seek to develop an industrial-scale biomanufacturing process, confirm the CD28 antagonists" immunomodulatory effect in non-human primates and prepare the ground for Phase I and IIa clinical trials in healthy volunteers and kidney transplant patients.
"The ANR financing and the reinforcement of our equities following our â"šÂ¬1m capital increase will enable us to implement the next steps of our first anti-CD28 antibody (FR104) and to consider industrial agreements," said Maryvonne Hiance, chief executive of TcL Pharma.