In a period, where uncountable big pharmas and biotechs are struggling to get the largest piece of the immunotherapy cake, an unexpected player has arrived. TxCell, a French biotech, received an option to extend its current phase IIb study from EU to US, a stage that lots of immunotherapy experts would like to reach.
TxCell was founded fourteen years ago and raised in total €36.8M, but patience was the price to pay for these successes. Coinciding with the arrival of Stéphane Boissel to the management team, the company seems to be on the right tracks. The French entrepreneur was Deputy CEO of Transgene before joining TxCell to finally make it take off.
Its innovative techonology is of course, of great help too. TxCell is developing personalized T-cell immunotherapies using antigen specific regulatory T-cells (Ag-Tregs) for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
The company’s lead candidate, Ovasave, has received an authorization from the FDA to extend its current phase IIb study from Europe to the States. The Investigational New Drug designation provides further opportunities for Ovasave to progress smoothly to phase III and commercialization.
The study is currently one of largest ever-controlled studies for a personalized T-cell immunotherapy product. This is an important milestone for TxCell and will help the company to stand out in the busy immunotherapy sector.