Prescient Therapeutics to progress innovative pipeline of cancer treatments with capital raise

Prescient Therapeutics (ASX: PTX) has launched a capital raising targeting $8 million to maintain its momentum in developing its pipeline of innovative cancer and cell therapies and move towards first-in-human clinical studies.

Prescient has a broad pipeline of personalised cancer treatments, comprising two cell therapy platforms (OmniCAR and CellPryme-M) and targeted therapies spanning a range of different cancers.

Prescient’s flagship OmniCAR cell therapy platform has the potential to elevate any CAR-T therapy by making it more controllable, targeted, flexible, sustainable and cost-efficient.

Developed by UPenn and Oxford and licenced exclusively to Prescient, OmniCAR can be used with any cell, any cancer and in a collaboration with any partner.

In June, Prescient unveiled it’s CellPryme-M platform, developed in collaboration with the world-leading Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. Designed to increase the efficacy and longevity of CAR-T therapies, this second platform can be used with or without OmniCAR to complement its benefits.

The company is also focused on the clinical development of targeted drugs PTX-100 and PTX-200 for patients with rare and hard to treat cancers such as T-cell lymphoma and refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Adding to these, Prescient has three in-house CAR-T therapies in development with Peter Mac addressing severe cancers glioblastomas (GBM), and AML solid tumours.

These are based on OmniCAR technology and will also use CellPryme going forward, thereby also serving as proof of concept to potential platform partners.

Capital raising to fund pipeline progress

Under the terms of a new share purchase plan, eligible investors will be able to apply for up to $30,000 worth of fully paid ordinary shares at $0.175 each.

Equivalent to a 14.6% discount to the volume weighted average price over the last five days and a 16.7% discount to the closing price on 23 August.

Funds raised will be used to progress ongoing development of Prescient’s deep pipeline of innovative cancer therapies, namely the ongoing clinical development of its targeted therapies PTX-100 and PTX-200, and progressing its innovative cell therapies towards and into first-inhuman clinical studies.

Funds will also cover general working capital and purchase plan costs.

Growth trajectory

Managing director Steven Yatomi-Clarke said the capital raising would seek to build on Prescient’s recent growth trajectory.

“The last couple of years have been a period of incredible progress for us and we are seeking to maintain this momentum and position ourselves at the forefront of oncology innovation,” he said.

“We are pleased to be able to provide our shareholders with the opportunity to participate in this by purchasing new shares at a modestly discounted price without incurring brokerage or transaction costs.”

Cancer trials

In April, Prescient began recruiting patients for an expanded clinical trial evaluating PTX-100 in the treatment of aggressive rare blood cancers called T-cell lymphomas.

The open label, non-randomised trial will enrol up to 12 patients with relapsed and refractory lymphoma and will be led by world-renowned haematologist Prof H Miles Prince at Melbourne’s Epworth Hospital.

A month later, the company announced it would expand the cohort of a phase 1b clinical study of PTX-200 and chemotherapy medication cytarabine in patients with relapsed and refractory AML after a fourth complete remission was observed on the study.

Prescient said it would recruit three new patients to further explore the drug’s safety and efficacy at that dose level.

Additionally, one patient in the prior cohort being treated with a lower dose of PTX-200 had been determined to have had a partial response in the way of a reduced cancer burden (or the amount of cancer in the body).