“The microbiome is a new pillar of biology that has historically been untapped,” said co-founder and CEO Stephanie Culler. Persephone Biosciences, in an interview on Tuesday.
Her company is a preclinical biotechnology company focused on microbiome medicines, improve Received $15 million in seed funding on Tuesday. The round was led by First Bight Ventures and Propel Bio Partners.
Persephone, founded in 2017, will use the funding to advance its oncology treatment trials and continue to develop its over-the-counter medicines to keep babies from getting sick.
The company’s flagship program is oncology, where it is developing microbiome therapies to improve the efficacy of FDA-approved immunotherapy drugs, Culler said in an interview. She also noted that most cancer datasets are very limited in size and demographic diversity of participants.Last year, the biotech launched Argonaut, the largest-ever study of the gut microbiome of cancer patients in the U.S.
Half of Argonaut’s participants will be from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds. The study will analyze stool and blood samples from 4,000 cancer patients — 1,000 of them with colorectal, non-small cell lung, triple-negative breast and pancreatic cancers. Cooler said Persephone was “very close” to announcing the first patient in the trial.
The biotech company will use the data it collects during research to develop microbiome drugs and identify cancer-specific biomarkers that can inform treatment decisions.
December, Persephone cooperating Argonaut’s colorectal cancer division developed in partnership with Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. The companies are working to find better treatments for colorectal cancer patients and potentially develop preventive treatments for the disease. To do this, they will study two cohorts: colorectal cancer patients and healthy people with different risk of colorectal cancer determined by colonoscopy.
The partners will collect thousands of fecal samples that map the microbiome, thousands of blood samples representing the immune system, electronic health records, and diet and lifestyle data over “a few years,” Culler said.
The FDA approval process for the oncology drug Persephone that will eventually be developed will require multiple studies — Culler said she estimates the company will have the treatments ready for clinic testing by 2024.
For its infant medicine program, Persephone sees the microbiome as an area where clinicians can begin to detect disease earlier so that it can be treated earlier in life. The biotech company is creating a microbiome drug for babies to prevent diseases like food allergies or IBS.
The company is preparing to launch an infant study to map the microbiome of more than 600 babies in the first few months of life. It will help them develop baby medicines that restore the flora in the baby’s microbiome and help them have a healthy immune system.
Persephone is looking to commercialize the drug over-the-counter next year. According to Culler, this will be the biotech’s first market product.
Photo: Spawn, Getty Images
