GPN Vaccines, founded in 2017 by Dr Tim Hurst alongside professors James Paton and Mohammed Alsharifi has secured $18 million Series B investment to develop a vaccine to combat Streptococcus pneumoniae – the world’s foremost bacterial pathogen that can cause life-threatening pneumonia, bacteraemia and meningitis, as well as otitis media (middle ear infections).
This bacterium is each year responsible for causing 1-2 million deaths worldwide, killing more children than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. There are now more than 100 different serotypes of S. pneumoniae and the best vaccine currently on the market only protects against 20 of them.
In January this year, GPN Vaccines reported positive safety and immunogenicity data from its Phase 1 first-in-human clinical trial in Australia to investigate its novel pneumococcal vaccine (called ‘Gamma-PN’), in people aged 50 to 69. Gamma-PN is being developed to protect children and adults against all S. pneumoniae strains, regardless of serotype.
In May, GPN was awarded $936,000 in Round 3 of Brandon BioCatalyst’s CUREator Program – the funding marking an important step in advancing the development of Gamma-PN.
GPN Vaccines’ oversubscribed Series B1 investment round was co-led by Forepont Capital, Kern Capital and Shearwater Capital founding partner Mike Gregg.
Some information for this article and image sourced from Business News Australia.
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Also in the clinical trials space in Adelaide, cell therapy immunoncology company Carina Biotech continues its groundbreaking first-in-human Phase 1/2a CAR-T clinical trial in patients with advanced colorectal cancer, after dosing its first patient in December 2023. In April this year Carina presented three poster presentations from studies of its LGR5-targeting CAR-T program in colorectal and ovarian cancer at the American Association for Cancer Research AACR Annual Meeting.
While Aucentra Therapeutics announced in March 2024 the successful completion of its ATTACK-1 clinical trial combining a Phase 1 study of auceliciclib in patients with advanced solid tumours and a Phase 2 study in combination with temozolomide (TMZ) in recurrent/refractory glioblastoma patients.
MTPConnect’s new report ‘Australia’s Clinical Trials Sector: Advancing innovative healthcare and powering economic growth‘, released last Friday revealed that Australia’s clinical trials sector generated $1.6 billion for the Australian economy in 2022, representing growth of more than 4% on 2019 – achieved in spite of the 2020 pandemic downturn.
MTPConnect’s report, developed through extensive and whole-of-sector stakeholder engagement, provides a snapshot of the size and scope of Australia’s clinical trials sector. It examines how the sector is performing, highlights the significant contribution that the conduct of clinical trials makes to the Australian economy and better health outcomes, and identifies opportunities for future growth.
Key findings:
This report follows two comprehensive sector profiles previously published by MTPConnect in 2021 and 2017 – all three serve as important resources for the sector.
These reports were produced in collaboration with L.E.K Consulting.