Cambridge biotech innovator CellCentric has won $33 million of new funding to accelerate cancer trials leveraging its novel drug CCS1477.

Hong Kong-founded Morningside Venture Investments has injected the capital as trials of the technology enter a critical stage.

The CellCentric drug is in Phase I/II clinical trials to treat late stage prostate cancer, haematological malignancies as well as tumours with specific drivers.  

Morningside was swift to respond to encouraging early data to date so that CellCentric could expand its clinical evaluation programme. 

Over 10 hospital sites are active in the UK with clinical operations coming on board into the US and then Europe early in 2021. 

CCS1477 is formulated as a capsule taken orally. It has been in clinical trials for over a year. 

With the new funding, the evaluation will expand, investigating CCS1477 both as a monotherapy and in combination with standard of care agents for multiple specific applications. The aim is to achieve initial clinical proof of concept for more than one setting by Q2 2021.

Dr Will West, CellCentric’s CEO, said: “We are delighted with the continued clinical, commercial and investor interest in our first-in-class cancer drug, CCS1477. Many thanks to Morningside for their continued support, as we progress our clinical plans fully resourced.”

CellCentric investigated more than 50 potential epigenetic-related drug targets before focusing on the twin histone acetyl transferases p300/CBP. An earlier programme based on an arginine methyltransferase target was licenced to Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Privately held CellCentric has UK headquarters at Chesterford Research Park, bases in Oxford and Manchester and multiple international operations and collaborations.