Hadasit Bio Holdings Ltd. (TASE:HDST) company KAHR Medical, raised $500,000 from HBL and the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS).
The financing will support further development of KAHR Medical’s product pipeline. The company has raised $1.5 million to date from Hadasit Bio and the OCS. KAHR also plans to begin an external financing round before the end of 2009 to support its clinical program.
KAHR Medical seeks to develop treatments for autoimmune diseases. Its drug development pipeline is built around the ‘trans signal converter proteins (TSCP)’ technology developed by Professor Mark L. Tykocinski and licensed from the University of Pennsylvania.
Shares in Hadasit Bio are up over 14% today on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). Its shares have gained over 215% in January alone. It appears to be one of several unrelated small biotech stocks that have soared on the TASE in the first few weeks of 2009.
Regarding KAHR Medical's technology, CEO Dr. Noam Shani said, “TSCP molecules represent a paradigm-shift in drug development. TSCP drugs are unique, because they integrate two functional sides within the same molecule, unlike conventional biologicals that only have one functional side. These two active sides allow TSCP drugs not only to block or induce cell signals, as conventional drugs do, but also to convert signals sent from one cell to another, which is especially beneficial for the manipulation of the immune system required for the treatment of autoimmune disease.”
Dr. Shani previously served as vice president of R&D at Medgenics (AIM: MEDG), and held the same position at Compugen (NASDAQ: CGEN).
Autoimmune diseases, the class of disorders in which the immune system attacks the body’s own organs, affects one in every twenty people on average. According to a December 2007 Datamonitor report, the 2009 autoimmune drug market will reach $20 billion in sales; ninety percent of that market relates to only three indications -rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis and multiple sclerosis (MS).
KAHR Medical also announced today that the company has selected two candidates from a group of validated TSCP compounds on which to initially focus. In the next six months the company plans to conduct preclinical studies of KAHR-101 and KAHR-102 at Hadassah University Hospital. KAHR plans to first initiate a clinical study of KAHR-101 as a treatment for RA by next year.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 28, 2009
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