PK MED receives DeepTech financing to develop cell-homing implant

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PK MED, a French biotech company, privately owned, and established in 2019 by Truffle Capital, announced it has secured a non-dilutive DeepTech financing of € 1.5 million from Bpifrance. The funding will accelerate the company’s project PKM-02, an innovative cell-homing technology aiming to enhance bone marrow transplantation in several diseases with high unmet medical need, such as leukemias and hemoglobinopathies.

The fraction of transplanted cells during an Allogenic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT), that are able to make their way to the bone marrow, known as homing, is reported to be low (1-10%). In addition, many patients are not eligible for the procedure, due to limited donor matching and an aggressive conditioning regimen needed to obtain a successful engraftment of the donor cells. Thus, there is an urgent unmet medical need to enhance the homing and engraftment of the transplanted cells.

PK MED’s innovative approach for the PKM-02 project, is based on the development of a therapeutic implant locally injected into the patient's bone marrow prior to allogeneic HSCT. This drug-based unique technology, combined with a biodegradable scaffold, is aimed at increasing the homing of the transplanted cells, as well as their subsequent engraftment. PKM-02 has shown several promising in vitro results, and PK MED is currently initiating preclinical studies. PK MED is considering extending this innovative technology to other applications in tissue regeneration.