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]

Pulmocide
Company typePrivately held company
IndustryBiopharmaceutical Research, Medical, Drug Discovery
FoundedJanuary 2007; 17 years ago (2007-01)
HeadquartersImperial College London,
Area served
European Union
Key people
Garth Rapeport, (CEO)
Peter Strong (CSO)
Websitepulmocide.com

History edit

Pulmocide 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 edit

Pulmocide 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

  1. ^ "Company Overview of Pulmocide Ltd". Bloomberg. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  2. ^ "British biotech Pulmocide raises £24m in bid to find treatment for deadly lung diseases". The Telegraph. 20 March 2017. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  3. ^ a b "J&J buys UK biotech RespiVert". PharmaTimes. 1 June 2010. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  4. ^ FinSMEs (21 March 2017). "Pulmocide Raises $30M in Series B Financing". FinSMEs. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ "Computer screens antiviral compounds against coronavirus". Nature India. doi:10.1038/nindia.2020.100. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  9. ^ "Pulmocide announces Scientific Reports". Biotech Gate. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 8 July 2019.

External links edit

Official website