PPF Group & Sotio complete acquisition of Cytune

Biotech company owned by PPF Group, Sotio, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Cytune Pharma.

Under the terms of the acquisition, Sotio will continue to develop Cytune’s lead pipeline molecule SO-C101 (RLI-15) and intends to initiate first-in-human clinical trials early next year (2019). Sotio is fronting all of PPF’s activities in the biotech sector and was closely involved in Cytune’s acquisition process. Additionally, all of Cytune’s projects will be developed as part of Sotio’s pipeline.

“We are excited about the completion of the acquisition and welcome Cytune to the PPF Group. Cytune and Sotio have been closely and very successfully collaborating over the course of the last few years and we very much look forward to initiating the first clinical trials with SO-C101 in a few months,” commented Radek Spisek, CEO of Sotio. “SO-C101 will become a core programme of our pipeline, together with our clinical programmes in ovarian, lung and prostate cancer based on our autologous dendritic cell therapy platform DCVAC.”

“I’m proud that our products, originating from INSERM and the University of Nantes and supported by Bpifrance and Atlanpole Biotherapies, hold the potential to lead to new therapeutic options for the treatment of cancer patients. Such IL-2/IL-15Rβγ agonists represent a new and very promising class of drugs in the immune-oncology segment as they have shown to re-induce responses in patients after failure to checkpoint inhibitors treatment,” added David Bechard, president and COO of Cytune. “The continued financial support by PPF combined with Sotio’s clinical development expertise will be instrumental in accelerating the development of SO-C101 in multiple clinical trials, ultimately for the benefit of cancer patients.”

Initially, the deal between PPF Group and Cytune was announced in 2015 and involved investments into Cytune and a staged-acquisition of the company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.