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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
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Why Tocagen Raised $98M

Last month, San Diego drugmaker Tocagen Inc. raised $98 million in the largest initial public offering San Diego has seen in a few years.

What’s the company doing with the new money?

It’s tackling the most common form of brain cancer with an experimental drug built off an experimental technique: gene therapy.

Gene therapies are treatments that transplant normal genes into cells to correct missing or defective ones. The approach is meant to provide a lasting effect, though no gene therapies have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration just yet.

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Tocagen is focused on high-grade glioma, a type of brain cancer that affects roughly 160,000 people per year. Even after undergoing chemotherapy, the cancer tends to recur in patients.

The local company has developed a way to deliver helpful genes to the DNA of specific cancer cells. Tocagen’s lead product candidate has two working parts that form an anti-cancer compound: injectable vocimagene amitretroprevec (coined “Toca 511” by the company) and an extended release version of 5-fluorocytosine (or “5-FC”), an antifungal drug that comes in pill form. The idea is to use the two components to turn cancer cells into tiny factories churning out anti-cancer agents.

The company has treated 126 brain cancer patients with its gene therapy product in three early-stage clinical trials. With the new capital from the IPO, the company will finance the manufacturing and validation of both components of its experimental gene therapy as it continues its Phase 2 clinical trials.

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