Microbial Immunotherapy Company Prokarium Raises $30M On Heels Of Ginkgo Bioworks Partnership

, the immediate association might be food poisoning, or even eggs; for, the pair would usually be tuberculosis.

With its evolutionarily optimized Salmonella strain chassis, Prokarium’s flagship “living medicine” bacteria-based immunotherapy program aims to move forward in the fight against bladder cancer — for which BCG is currently standard-of-care. While the company is approaching treatment in its first patient this year, “what truly inspires the team at Prokarium is our aim to design the perfect bacterium to create living cures for difficult-to-treat cancers,” says CEO Kristen Albright.

This microbial immunotherapy system created by the engineered strain of Salmonella stands to particularly benefit patients suffering with bladder cancer with its potential to lyse cancer cells, counter tumor microenvironments, bolster anti-tumor host immune responses, and deliver a variety of therapeutic payloads in the form of custom synthetic circuits — based on the ingrained tumor-colonizing features of the organism.

While Prokarium’s bacterial technology sets it apart and is strengthened by a background in vaccine clinical research, Albright has worked as CEO since 2021 to assemble a high-caliber team to enable the company’s transition into the oncology, which will be crucial for the company to carefully navigate the various challenges associated with microbial immunotherapy. “Bacteria-based immunotherapy began with Coley's toxin over a century ago,” she explains.

These key elements of the journey ahead stand in relief against the various toxicity and targeting challenges sometimes faced by viral delivery for similar gene therapy systems. Enabled particularly by this funding round and the company’s new partnership with cell programming powerhouse Ginkgo Bioworks,January 9, 2023. Prokarium aims to harness the utility of bactofection — “infecting” mammalian cells with a genetic payload, in this instance RNA, through bacteria like Salmonella.

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