Gökhan Batur, Polyphor CEO

Polyphor mulls fu­ture af­ter PhI­II can­cer pro­gram crash­es

In 2018, Polyphor raised an $165 mil­lion IPO — a prince­ly sum at the time — large­ly on the strength of two pro­grams: a new type of an­tibi­ot­ic with promise against drug-re­sis­tant bac­te­ria and an im­mune-mod­u­lat­ing mol­e­cule for breast can­cer.

Three years lat­er, those two pro­grams are no more and Polyphor is mulling its fu­ture. The Swiss biotech an­nounced Mon­day that its can­cer treat­ment, bal­ix­afor­tide, failed in a Phase III tri­al for HER2-neg­a­tive breast can­cer. On the two key end­points, re­sponse rate and clin­i­cal ben­e­fit, stan­dard-of-care ac­tu­al­ly out­per­formed Polyphor’s drug.

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