The Boston Globe - March 30, 2009

Biotech's $40 million in funding will help it run cancer drug trial
The Boston Globe

A Woburn biotech firm is expected to say today that it has raised $40 million in financing that will help it launch a pivotal clinical trial next month.

BioVex Inc. said the finance round is its fourth since it was launched in England in 1999, and brings the total invested in the firm to $120 million. The company moved to the United States in 2005.

"Ordinarily at this point in time, we'd have the characteristics to go to the public markets and raise $75 million," said Philip Astley-Sparke, chief executive of BioVex. "Unfortunately, the last proper biotech initial public offering was in late 2007, and the market is not open to us."

Astley-Sparke said the company might raise additional funds within the current round, bringing total new funds to $60 million.

The money will be used for Phase 3 clinical trial of OncoVex, a cancer-destroying vaccine the company is developing to treat patients with skin cancer that has spread to other organs - often an untreatable condition. The trial will involve 360 patients and numerous hospitals, with 240 actually receiving the treatment.

In earlier trials, some patients who did not respond to existing treatments saw improvements from the OncoVex vaccine.

BioVex's methods involve using a modified cold-sore virus that is injected into a skin-cancer tumor. The virus then invades and kills cancerous cells within the tumor. The dying cells release additional virus particles to continue the attack. Healthy cells are not affected, the company said, and the virus has been disabled so it doesn't cause cold sores.

In the meantime, the company says, the virus stimulates a patient's immune system to seek out and destroy tumor cells in other parts of the body where the disease has spread.

With the expected $60 million in funding, BioVex will have enough money to operate through mid-2010, when it anticipates having interim results from the trial.

"This is potentially two years away from reality," Astley-Sparke said of the treatment.

The firms currently investing in BioVex have previously put money into the company.

They include lead investor Forbion Capital Partners, formerly part of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO Bank NV, Credit Agricole Private Equity, Innoven Partners, New Science Ventures, Triathlon Medical Venture Partners, and Scottish Equity Partners.