Barcelona was pleasant but once again it’s time to go away! We won’t go far… we’re just crossing the Balearic sea to the shores of Italy and visit Sovicille, a suburban town not far from Sienna, where Swiss-Italian company Philogen, our Biotech of the Week, is based!
City: Sovicille (Italy)
Founded: 1996
Employees: 70
Financial Data: N/A
CEO: Duccio Neri
Mission: Philogen focuses on health disorders related to angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels. Besides its normal role, angiogenesis is related to many severe pathologies, including cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and age-related macular degeneration.
As part of its discovery program, Philogen has developed products that target angiogenesis in vivo. It was the first in the world to demonstrate that human monoclonal antibodies can be effective at targeting the neo-vasculature of tumors.
Its work has yielded 5 candidates currently in clinical development. Of these, 4 target a variety of cancers (melanoma, lymphoma, carcinoma and sarcoma) and another targets inflammatory disease (rheumatoid arthritis).
In Zurich, the subsidiary Philochem isolates promising candidates. These are then taken to Philogen’s facilities in Siena for GMP manufacturing and assessed in clinical trials.
Comment: Philogen has strong partners in big Pharma – Pfizer, AbbVie and Boehringer Ingelheim. Back in 2011, it planned an IPO on the Milan stock exchange, which it later cancelled when Bayer exited a cancer partnership. So far, it remains a
So far, it remains a private Biotech. With candidates in Phase III and Phase IIb, Philogen has quite an advanced clinical pipeline.