$15 Million for Calimmune and California Stem Cell HIV Trial
By David Jensen,
California Stem Cell Report
| 05. 27. 2015
Untitled Document
Calimmune, Inc., which has received $8.3 million from the California stem cell agency, today announced it has rustled up another $15 million to help out with the work that the agency is backing.
Calimmune of Tucson, Ariz., was co-founded by a former agency board member and Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore. It is currently engaged in a clinical trial in Los Angeles and San Francisco involving a treatment for HIV.
“Calimmune hasn't had much of a profile outside of the HIV world, but (CEO Louis) Breton is looking to change that. The company has a staff of 40 now, he says, and is looking to expand and possibly strike a partnership deal with a Big Pharma in the space. And unlike some of the leading gene therapy companies in the industry which are targeting tiny populations, Calimmune is tackling a treatment for a disease with a huge, global population of patients. Discussions about million-dollar therapies, he says, won't work for something like HIV.
"‘Our mission,’ says Breton...
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