Esperance secure $9M financing

Louisiana, USA-based Esperance Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company developing targeted and selective anticancer agents, has secured a $9.0 million series A financing that will help the company move its lead compound toward early clinical testing.

The Louisiana Fund I LP (Baton Rouge) founded Esperance on technology discovered by researchers at Louisiana State University, the LSU AgCenter and the LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

Co-lead investors with Louisiana Fund I are Themelios Ventures Partners LP (Shreveport) and Research Corporation Technologies (Tucson, Arizona). Esperance is developing a unique, targeted, anticancer fusion protein that is selectively toxic to cancer cells. Targeting occurs through the designed ligand component that binds singular extracellular receptors on the cancer cell. The potent cytolytic peptide portion of the drug kills the cancer cell. Initial experiments in therapeutic animal models of human cancer showed regression of well-established tumors.