SPRIM Global Investments, a Singapore-based health sciences venture capital firm, has led the $21-million equity and debt financing in Australian biotech company Prota Therapeutics, according to an announcement.
The funding will be used to advance the development of Prota’s peanut allergy remission oral therapy, PRT120, which is being prepared for a Phase 3 clinical investigation.
The company also plans to expand its executive management team to bring on board experts in late-stage drug development and commercialisation.
According to a report cited by Prota, the peanut allergy therapeutics market is projected to reach $1 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual rate of 10%. In the US, peanut allergy is the most prevalent food allergy in children, affecting 2.5% of them.
“Our Phase 2b[1] multicenter randomized controlled trial conducted by MCRI showed that PRT120 is highly effective at inducing remission of allergy, and more importantly, leads to significant and clinically meaningful improvement in quality of life, compared with standard care (placebo treatment),” said Prota founder Mimi Tang.
Prota Theurapeutics is backed by OneVentures’ Healthcare Fund III, a fund established with investment in part from the Australian Commonwealth Government through the BioMedical Translation Fund initiative.
Established in 2016, the biotech company develop and commercialize novel oral immunotherapy treatments for food allergy. Prota holds intellectual property covering the proprietary food immunotherapy technology developed at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
SPRIM Global Investments, on the other hand, invests in biotechnology, digital health, and R&D service companies to commercialise the newest technologies and accelerate innovations that are the future of health.
The venture capital firm earlier backed the $15-million funding in ObvioHealth, a US- and Singapore-based clinical trials provider.