TC BIOPHARM has secured nearly £1.2 million in equity and grant funding to treat UK-based patients with melanoma, lung and kidney cancer, with the investment led by Scotland's only female angel group.
The boost comes after TCB became the only biotechnology company outside Japan to secure the right to trial immunotherapy to treat patients with cancer.
More than half the funding has come from the first major investment from Investing Women. It has led the funding round by investing £680,000, with support from Scottish Investment Bank and WH Partnership.
Scottish Enterprise has provided around £500,000 which will directly fund TCB's cancer therapy trial, which will begin in September with initial clinical studies taking place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton.
TCB's ImmuniCell product uses patients' own cells grown in culture to treat a variety of cancers. It has been used to treat patients by TCB's strategic pharma-partner Medient of Japan.
As well as cancers, the platform is believed to have the potential to target major viral infections such as severe influenza, HIV and Ebola.
TCB chief executive Michael Leek said: "Since commencing operations 16 months ago, TCB has raised over £3.3m in seed equity and grants. These funds, and the fantastic support from those who contributed, has allowed us to realise our goal - treating cancer patients."
Jackie Waring, chief executive of Investing Women, said: "Investing Women is thrilled to lead this investment in TCB which allows the first treatment of cancer patients using ImmuniCell therapy.
"It has been an exciting journey, and this is just the start. The team at TCB are at the top of their game, and we have absolute confidence in their ability to deliver amazing results as well as their utter dedications to saving lives."
TCB received was licensed by the Medicines Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in January to produce human cell therapy products at its clinical manufacturing facility in Maxim Office Park, Lanarkshire.
The process is understood to be vital in the fight against cancer, and has already been trialled safely in Japan by Medinet, the Tokyo-listed immuno-cell therapy company.
Medinet holds 50 per cent of the shares in TCB and last year the two signed a strategic partnership which will see the Scottish firm clinically develop the process in the UK and Europe.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article