Subsidiary of Heat Biologics Receives Part of Grant Award

Heat Biologics (NASDAQ:HTBX) announced its subsidiary Pelican Therapeutics received the first tranche of a $15.2 million grant award from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas.

As quoted in the press release:

“We have made significant progress in advancing PTX-25, our lead antibody, towards the clinic, having completed key milestones, including epitope mapping, affinity maturation and antibody development studies,” said Jeff Wolf, Founder and CEO of Heat. “We are pleased that Pelican has received the first tranche of its CPRIT award, which provides non-dilutive funding to cover costs of IND-enabling studies towards a comprehensive, 70-patient Phase 1 clinical trial combining PTX-25 with other immune-oncology drugs”
The recent acquisition of Pelican strengthens Heat’s portfolio in the emerging T cell activation space. PTX-25 is a novel costimulatory antibody against TNFRSF25, an emerging costimulatory receptor on T cells. PTX-25 has the potential to improve clinical response in combination with Heat’s ImPACT vaccine platform, as well as with other immunotherapy drugs, by stimulating the production of antigen specific “memory” CD8+ T cells – the immune cells critical in tumor eradication. T cell costimulatory therapy such as PTX-25, when combined with checkpoint inhibitors and other treatments, could significantly improve clinical responses for a broader range of patients.

Click here to read the full press release.

Source: www.accesswire.com