$40 million in financing to advance oral peptide drugs

Protagonist Therapeutics, a spin-out from The University of Queensland’s Institute of Molecular Biosciences (IMB), has announced the closing of a $40 million Series C financing. Proceeds from the financing will be used to further the development of the company’s oral peptide drug candidates.

Protagonist’s lead development candidate, PTG-100, is an orally stable peptide therapeutic which will be advanced by the financing into human clinical testing as a potential ‘oral targeted therapy’ for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). The drug works by specifically blocking alpha-4-beta-7 integrin, a clinically validated target for IBD.

With the help of new and existing investors — including Canaan Partners, Adage Capital Management, RA Capital Management, Foresite Capital, Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC, Lilly Ventures, Pharmstandard International SA and Starfish Ventures — Protagonist plans to initiate Phase 1 human clinical testing of PTG-100 by the end of 2015. The company hopes to progress to Phase 1/2 clinical studies in IBD patients during 2016.

As part of the transaction, the company also announced that Julie Papanek, a principal at Canaan Partners, has joined the Protagonist board of directors. Papanek brings operational experience in the areas of biotechnology and digital health to the board, having previously worked at biotech corporation Genentech in a variety of positions spanning marketing, development and business development.

“IBD and other chronic gastrointestinal diseases and disorders represent areas of growing and unmet medical need, where oral targeted therapy drugs could offer significant advantages and differentiation over injectable biologics,” said Papanek. “Protagonist’s proprietary technology platform has enabled the company to build a significant pipeline of drug candidates that are well differentiated against both small molecule and biologics therapies.”