SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Immusoft Corporation, a Seattle, Wash.-based gene therapy company, announced today it is a winner of the Most Promising Company Award from the Precision Medicine World Conference, held in Silicon Valley last week. The award recognizes companies with especially promising and innovative health care diagnostic, therapeutic and technological solutions.
In making its decision, the judging panel, consisting of leaders in venture capital and biotechnology, considered, among other attributes, the strength of Immusoft’s intellectual property, its ability to disrupt the current standard-of-care, as well as its commercialization strategy and expected value creation for shareholders.
“Immusoft is honored to receive this recognition,” said Sean Ainsworth, the company’s CEO and Chairman of the Board. “The Precision Medicine World Conference is well known for bringing together under one roof some of the most innovative companies in our industry. I’m proud that we competed so well with such distinguished competition.”
Ainsworth presented on Immusoft’s behalf at the conference. He became the company’s CEO and Chairman of the Board in early January. A biotechnology veteran, earlier he founded and advanced a gene therapy company, RetroSense Therapeutics, into human trials. Allergan bought RetroSense Therapeutics in 2016.
Immusoft has developed a methodology designed to use a patient’s immune cells to treat disease. Its propriety Immune System Programming (ISP™) technology reprograms B cells with the goal of treating diseases, including MPS-I (Mucopolysaccharidosis type I), a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease that is expected to be Immusoft’s first clinical application.
ISP is an ex vivo cell culture system that uses a non-viral system to genetically modify B cells. ISP has its origins in a B cell culture system invented by Nobel laureate David Baltimore, Ph.D., which Immusoft has extensively improved upon.
Immusoft has worked with major medical and research center partners and received support from prominent investors including FF Science, an early stage investment vehicle of Founders Fund, Tim Draper, Technium Partners, and others. Breakout Labs supported Immusoft with one of its first grants in 2012. Among Immusoft’s other early grants was one from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Earlier this month, Immusoft closed a $3M initial tranche of a Series B financing. The full Series B is underway. The round is expected to provide Immusoft the funding it needs to complete its Phase I/II clinical trial in MPS-I and advance its pipeline.
Immusoft Corporation’s (immusoft.com) mission is to treat diseases using its breakthrough technology platform called Immune System Programming (ISP™). The technology instructs a patient’s cells to produce gene-encoded medicines (biologics). Cells that are reprogrammed using ISP become miniature drug factories that are expected to survive in patients for many years. Founded in 2009, Immusoft is based in Seattle, Wash.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current plans, estimates and projections. Immusoft Corporation undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement in light of new information or future events. Actual results or outcomes may differ from those implied by the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of operational, scientific, regulatory and related risks and uncertainties.
for Immusoft CorporationMike Wussow, 615-538-0251
First-in-human clinical trial of genetically engineered B cells: Application to the treatment of mucopolysaccharidosis type I
