Aspyrian Therapeutics Raises $8.5M for New Tumor Immunotherapy

[Updated 2/4/15 12:15 pm. See below.] See below.San Diego-based Aspyrian Therapeutics, founded in 2010 to advance technology that uses near-infrared light to activate an immune response targeting certain types of tumors, has raised almost $8.5 million from investors, according to a recent SEC filing. The investors were not identified.

The technology was developed at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) by Hisataka Kobayashi and Peter Choyke, the scientific leaders of the NCI’s molecular imaging program. Their approach uses near-infrared light to activate a toxic dye attached to monoclonal antibodies that bind to the surface of certain tumor cells. The concept is promising because the treatment is highly specific to cancer cells with epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFRs), and because the near-infrared light has caused no detectible phototoxic effect among antibody-dye conjugates that are not bound to the surface of cancer cells.

[Updated 2/4/15] In an e-mail, Aspyrian CEO M. Scott Salka explains the dye attached to the antibody is not toxic until it is activatated. He writes: “The dye we use is actually non-toxic and very water soluble. The killing effect is a very local phenomenon around the dye molecules that only occurs when they are being excited by a 690 nm (near infrared) light source. Since the dye itself is so water soluble (lipophobic), it has no affinity itself for normal tissues and cells, which is where the antibody comes into play; the monoclonal antibody selectively carries the dye payload to cells expressing the EGFR antigen, giving us a very large therapeutic window between normal epithelial cells (which do express some level of EGFR) and the cancer cells (which express a very high number of EGF receptors).”

Aspyrian secured an exclusive license for the technology. According to the company’s website, Aspyrian plans to obtain early stage clinical data by the end of this year that demonstrates the safety of its technology as well as an anti-cancer response in humans.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.