Less than a month af­ter of­fer­ing a glimpse at ear­ly clin­i­cal da­ta for its lead can­cer im­munother­a­py at vir­tu­al ES­MO, Sen­sei Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has reeled in $28.5 mil­lion to wade deep­er in­to Phase II.

The Mary­land-based biotech, for­mer­ly known as Panacea, is look­ing to ex­pand Phase II tri­als for SNS-301, an en­gi­neered in­ac­ti­vat­ed bac­te­rio­phage de­signed to “awak­en” the im­mune sys­tem. “Right now we’re re­al­ly fo­cused on adding ad­di­tion­al Phase II clin­i­cal and trans­la­tion­al da­ta to sup­port SNS-301,” CEO John Celebi said.

The round, which the com­pa­ny is call­ing a Se­ries AA, fol­lows sev­er­al seed rounds, Celebi said. It was led by Cam­bri­an Bio­phar­ma and H&S Ven­tures, and will fund the Phase II de­vel­op­ment of SNS-301. It will al­so help ready the biotech’s ear­li­er can­di­dates for IND ap­pli­ca­tions, which could come some­time in the next 12 to 18 months. That in­cludes SNS-401, a po­ten­tial vac­cine cock­tail against Merkel cell car­ci­no­ma, and SNS-VISTA, an an­ti­body-based ther­a­peu­tic.

Last sum­mer, Sen­sei joined forces with As­traZeneca to test SNS-301 in com­bi­na­tion with Imfinzi in two Phase II tri­als across mul­ti­ple sol­id tu­mors. And at ES­MO, the biotech read out ear­ly da­ta from a Phase I/II study of the can­di­date and Mer­ck’s Keytru­da for ad­vanced head and neck can­cer. One of 9 pa­tients eval­u­at­ed at the time had a par­tial re­sponse, with a tu­mor re­duc­tion of 43%, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny.

“The ap­proval of pem­brolizum­ab is an ex­cit­ing event for pa­tients, but clear­ly there’s a lot of room for im­prove­ment,” Celebi said, cit­ing a Keynote-012 study which showed Mer­ck’s drug achieved an 18% over­all re­sponse in pa­tients with metasta­t­ic squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma of the head and neck.

CMO Marie-Louise Fjaell­skog not­ed in a state­ment:

To date, we have ob­served promis­ing clin­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty that is cor­re­lat­ed with im­mune re­sponse for SNS-301, in­clud­ing a par­tial re­sponse in a pa­tient with PD-L1-neg­a­tive dis­ease. This ini­tial da­ta from 9 pa­tients pro­vides us with the ra­tio­nale to con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing its safe­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy in 1^st and 2^nd line SC­CHN pa­tients.

Fu­ture Ven­tures, Chris­t­ian Anger­may­er’s Ape­iron In­vest­ment Group, and Pre­sight Ven­tures al­so chipped in to the round.

“With ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment and sci­en­tif­ic teams, Sen­sei is well po­si­tioned to be­come a leader in next gen­er­a­tion of im­mune-on­col­o­gy ther­a­peu­tics,” Cam­bri­an Bio­phar­ma CEO James Pey­er said in a state­ment.

The co-owner of a Florida-based clinical research site pleaded guilty to lying to an FDA investigator during a 2017 inspection, revealing that she falsely portrayed part of a GlaxoSmithKline pediatric asthma study as legitimate, when in fact she knew that certain data had been falsified, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

Three other employees — Yvelice Villaman Bencosme, Lisett Raventos and Maytee Lledo — previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced in connection with falsifying data associated with the trial at the CRO Unlimited Medical Research.

New research shows how generic drug companies can successfully market a limited number of approved indications for a brand name drug, prior to coming to market for all of the indications. But several recent court decisions have created a layer of uncertainty around these so-called “skinny” labels.

While courts have generally allowed generic manufacturers to use their statutorily permitted skinny-label approvals, last summer, a federal circuit court found that Teva Pharmaceuticals was liable for inducing prescribers and patients to infringe GlaxoSmithKline’s patents through advertising and marketing practices that suggested Teva’s generic, with its skinny label, could be employed for the patented uses.