Heat Bio Gets $250K Biotech Center Loan

A young biopharmaceutical company that moved its headquarters from Miami to Chapel Hill in 2011 has landed a $250,000 loan from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Heat Biologics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company with a unique next-generation drug platform initially targeting cancer, received the maximum available from the Biotech Center’s Strategic Growth Loan program after an extensive review of the technical and commercial merits of the company’s R&D plans.

Heat plans to use the funds to help pay clinical trial expenses for its proprietary vaccines.

“This loan will allow us to accelerate the pace at which we move our innovative cancer vaccines into the clinical trial phase,” said Heat CEO Jeffrey Wolf. “It helps Heat take a step forward on the path to offering options to patients battling some of the most devastating cancers and infectious diseases.” 

Joseph Nixon, business development director at the Center, oversees the loan program. “The Biotechnology Center is pleased to support the growth of Heat Biologics,” he said, “with its innovative technology and the potential to create biotechnology jobs in North Carolina. Heat Biologics is a very good fit for the Strategic Growth Loan, part of the Biotechnology Center’s core programs.”

Heat is focused on developing novel off-the-shelf live-cell therapeutic vaccines to treat a wide range of cancers and infectious diseases. Off-the-shelf vaccines are those that can be used by the general population, versus autogenous, or custom-made, therapies designed for specific patients.

Heat is conducting Phase II clinical trials with its lead drug, HS-110, for use against non-small cell lung cancer. HS-110 is a vaccine therapy built on Heat’s ImPACT brand technology, which reprograms live tumor cells to continually pump out antigens that mobilize and activate the body’s natural killer T cells against the targeted cancer.

The company, launched in 2008 with venture funding, plans to initiate additional clinical trials against bladder and ovarian cancer in 2012.