Date: Oct 23, 2013 Author: David Robinson Source: The Buffalo News (
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Cleveland BioLabs has reached its second agreement within a week with a Russian government agency to provide funding for the development of drugs that could be used to treat cancer.
In the latest deal, announced Wednesday, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade agreed to pump $4.6 million over three years into Cleveland BioLabs' majority-owned subsidiary, Panacela labs, to help fund the pre-clinical development of Mobilian, a potential cancer vaccine. The funding from the Russian trade ministry will match money raised for the development of Mobilian that comes from Panacela.
Panacela was formed two years ago as a joint venture between Cleveland BioLabs, a Buffalo-based life sciences company, and Rusnano, a Russian investment company.
Panacela also said that Michael Fonstein, Cleveland BioLabs' president who stepped down as its chief executive officer last year, will take over as CEO and president of Panacela. Fonstein replaces Dmitry Tyomkin, who recently became chief executive officer of Buffalo BioLabs, an entity affiliated with one of the company's founders, Andrei Gudkov, that is absorbing Cleveland BioLabs' laboratory and pre-clinical services staff.
Cleveland BioLabs last week said it has won about $4.6 million in funding from a Russian government agency to support research into the use of its Entolimod drug as a treatment for colorectal cancer.
Cleveland BioLabs has been focusing much of its efforts on the advanced stages of development for the use of its Entolimod drug as a treatment for radiation sickness. The use of Entolimod and the company's other compounds as potential cancer treatments are in the early stages of development. To accelerate the process and gain access to new funding sources, Cleveland BioLabs has shifted the development of some of its cancer drugs to its Russian joint ventures.
