Pulmocide is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focusing on the discovery and development of inhaled medicine for the treatment of life-threatening fungal and viral infections of the respiratory tract.[1] The company is based in London and has a laboratory at the Imperial College’s Innovation Hub.[2]
 | |
| Company type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Biopharmaceutical Research, Medical, Drug Discovery |
| Founded | January 2007 |
| Headquarters | Imperial College London, |
Area served | European Union |
Key people | Garth Rapeport, (CEO) Peter Strong (CSO) |
| Website | pulmocide |
History
editPulmocide was formed in 2007 by Garth Rapeport (CEO) and Pete Strong (CSO) who previously co-founded RespiVert Ltd alongside Peter J. Barnes and Kazuhiro Ito.[3] RespiVert was acquired by a division of Johnson & Johnson in 2010.[3]
In March 2017, Pulmocide raised $30 million in Series B Financing. The round was led by SR One and included Longwood Fund, SV Life Sciences, F-Prime Capital, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Touchstone Innovations plc.[4]
Drug development
editPulmocide is conducting phase 2 trials with PC945, a potent inhaled antifungal agent for the treatment of Aspergillus infections of the lung in patients with asthma, cystic fibrosis or following lung transplantation.[5] Positive initial efficacy data for PC945 in treatment refractory Aspergillus infection following lung transplantation is reported.[6] Pulmocide is conducting a study with PC786, an antiviral compound for the treatment of Human orthopneumovirus, formerly Human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV).[5] A recent in-silico study on PC786 has been published in Science Advances, AAAS,[7] that showed improved binding efficacy[8] against the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
In July 2019, Pulmocide announced a Scientific Reports (Nature Research) publication showing PC945 in combination with standard antifungal treatment causes a synergistic effect against Aspergillus fumigatus.[9]
References
edit- ^ "Company Overview of Pulmocide Ltd". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- ^ "British biotech Pulmocide raises £24m in bid to find treatment for deadly lung diseases". The Telegraph. 20 March 2017. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- ^ a b "J&J buys UK biotech RespiVert". PharmaTimes. 1 June 2010. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- ^ FinSMEs (21 March 2017). "Pulmocide Raises $30M in Series B Financing". FinSMEs. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
- ^ a b "A Study of PC786 to Evaluate the Antiviral Activity, Safety and Pharmacokinetics of Multiple Doses in an RSV Challenge Study". Clinicaltrials.gov. 22 December 2017. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- ^ "Fungal Update Meeting 2019: First Case Report of PC945 Treatment of Refectory Aspergillus Anastomotic Infection in a Lung Transplant Recipient". BEAM Alliance. 19 March 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
- ^ Panda, Pritam Kumar; Arul, Murugan Natarajan; Patel, Paritosh; Verma, Suresh K.; Luo, Wei; Rubahn, Horst-Günter; Mishra, Yogendra Kumar; Suar, Mrutyunjay; Ahuja, Rajeev (July 2020). "Structure-based drug designing and immunoinformatics approach for SARS-CoV-2". Science Advances. 6 (28): eabb8097. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abb8097. ISSN 2375-2548. PMC 7319274. PMID 32691011.
- ^ "Computer screens antiviral compounds against coronavirus". Nature India. doi:10.1038/nindia.2020.100. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
- ^ "Pulmocide announces Scientific Reports". Biotech Gate. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 8 July 2019.