Immunotope raises $350K for cancer vaccine
Immunotope, a Doylestown, Pa., biotechnology company working on cancer vaccines, raised a second $350,000 investment (PDF) from Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
An earlier $350,000 investment allowed the company to manufacture its cancer vaccine, which is initially aimed at ovarian and breast tumors. The new funding will supposedly permit Immunotope to fund early-stage patient-treatment and evaluation studies, although it’s really not clear how much the company can expect to accomplish with these relatively tiny investments. Cancer vaccines are pretty complex beasts, and even early-stage “phase I” trials aren’t anywhere near this cheap.
In fact, that’s probably why Immunotope CEO Edward Erickson told VentureWire (subscription required) that he’ll be looking for another $800,000 seed funding by the end of this year and a $20 million to $30 million first round in the second quarter of 2008.
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About the Author, David P. Hamilton
David Hamilton has been writing for VentureBeat LifeScience since April 2007. He formerly spent 14 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in its San Francisco and Tokyo bureaus. Prior to that, he spent several years as a reporter at Science Magazine and as a reporter/researcher for the New Republic, both in Washington.