PERSEA

Persea is a French biotech developping BioTrojan, a Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT) revolutionizing solid cancer treatments: it destroys the tumor and prevents recurrence thanks to a vaccinating effect.

Our team is complementary and experimented :
-    CEO : Mrs Sophie de Ferrières, 18-year sales & marketing and team management experience in the IT sector (Xerox, Samsung, HP)
-    CTO : Mrs Gisèle Deblandre, PhD, 20-year cellular therapy development expert, in both academic laboratory and industrial environment (MaSTherCell/Catalent)
-    CMO : Pr Olivier Pellerin, MD, PhD, founder of the Oncologic Interventional Radiology unit in HEGP (APHP, Paris) - co-inventor of Persea patents
-    International influence  : Pr Marc Sapoval,  MD, PhD, head of the Interventional Radiology service in HEGP (APHP, Paris)

• -   Technology inventor : Isabelle de Waziers (Inserm, PhD) - main inventor of Persea patents
   

First indication: liver cancer (rare disease & major unmet medical need)

The problem : Primary liver cancer is a rare disease that affects 900,000 new patients worldwide each year; it is the 3rd cancer when it comes to mortality with a 5-year survival rate of 17%.
75% of patients receive palliative treatments which have been the subject of regular improvements increasing survival by a few months to reach today a median survival of 2.5 years.
Market size : global liver cancer treatment expenditures are increasing and are estimated at $40B WW in 2040 - our eligeable market target represents $4B market (US & Europe, patients eligeable to our treatment).
IP : 3 international patents, exclusive licence granted to Persea by Erganeo (SATT) - new IP being developped
POC showing outstanding results in animals with a complete histological response and a 2-year vaccinating effect.
Regulatory : eligeable to early dialog with authorities (ITF & PRIME in Europe) and expected orphan drug designation in the US and in Europe and eligeable for a patent exclusivity of up to 7 years in the USA and up to 10 years in Europe, as of the Market Authorization. 
Roadmap: final prototype ready early 2025 - CMC phase 2025-2028 - clinical trials 2028-2030 (phase I/II) - early market access in 2030 - Market Authorization 2033.

Our innovation is an allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell transduced by a modified gene increasing the tumor sensibility to chemotherapy acting like a Trojan horse: the therapeutic cells are introduced into the tumor and when the messenger (chemotherapy) reaches the Trojan Horse (BioTrojan), the latter is destroyed and by a by-stander effect destroys the tumor. This massive tumor cell destruction generates an immunogenic death  inducing an immune response that vaccinates against recurrence.

Our differentiators : BioTrojan will be 1st- and best-in-class for patient not eligeable to surgery, and affordable

• - 1st curative treatment with protection against recurrence;
• - Industrializable & affordable : the treatment is made of allogenic, which enables to produce it in batches and stock it in cancer centers for instant use. This enables to limit costs;
• - Designed to be efficient for a large number of patients as the efficacy does no depend on the genomic profile of the tumor. No selection via companion test will be necessary, the selection criteria will be the size of the tumor. Our target represent 35K patients in Europe and the US every year.
• - Extension in a near future to other indications starting with liver metastases of other cancers (colon, breast).