Corixa completes $15 mil. initial venture capital financing round; Muc-1 antigen in Phase I for cancers.

CORIXA SECURES $15 MILL. IN INITIAL ROUND OF VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDING under the stewardship of President and CEO Steven Gillis, PhD. The private financing was provided by five West Coast venture firms: Enterprise Partners (Newport Beach, Calif.), Interwest Partners (Menlo Park, Calif.), Olympic Venture Partners (Kirkland, Wash.), Forward Ventures (San Diego) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (Menlo Park). Gillis was the founder of Immunex and served as the Seattle-based biotech's exec VP-R&D. Corixa, also based in Seattle, was founded in September 1994. Gillis was acting CEO of Immunex following its merger with Lederle in 1993. He resumed his exec VP duties when Lederle exec Edward Fritzby was named Immunex chairman and CEO in January 1994.

Joining Gillis on Corixa's management team are Exec VP and Director of Antigen Discovery Steven Reed, PhD, the founder and scientific director of the Infectious Disease Research Institute in Seattle; and Chief Operating Officer Mark McDade, who held the same position at Boehringer Mannheim. Corixa Chairman Joseph Lacob is a partner at Kleiner Perkins. Corixa was KPCB's only biopharmaceutical start-up funding in 1994.

Corixa plans to focus on discovery and development of "immunologically smart" T-cell vaccines for treatment and prevention of specific malignancies and infectious diseases. Approximately 60% of Corixa's research resources are expected to be devoted to oncology vaccines, with 40% to support infectious disease vaccines.

The most advanced candidate in the vaccine program, the Muc-1 tumor antigen, is in Phase I testing at the University of Pittsburgh to activate tumor reactive T-cells to kill cancer cells in breast, pancreatic and colorectal cancer patients. The other vaccine programs include Her2/neu peptides for breast cancer, antigens for tuberculosis management and a Th2-cell stimulating vaccine for treatment of the tropical parasitic disease leishmaniasis, according to the company.

Corixa would like to "partner extensively with companies with which we can share a portion of the clinical risk and which can provide strong manufacturing and marketing clout in our target markets worldwide," Gillis said Jan. 9. Employees currently total 23 and are expected to increase to 45 by late in 1995, the company predicted. The firm's biomedical research facilities are leased from Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Corixa has negotiated or completed license agreements for patented or application rights to antigens, diagnostics and delivery systems technology from several institutions, including the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Washington, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Southern Research Institute. The company intends to supplement its therapeutics effort with development of diagnostics. Testing is under way outside the U.S. on diagnostics for leishmaniasis and another parasitic disease, trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas) disease.