About PNP Therapeutics

Overview

PNP Therapeutics^®, Inc. is a clinical-stage, biopharmaceutical company engaged in the development of Gedeptin^®, a platform technology and proprietary products for the treatment of cancer. At the center of PNP's Therapeutic System is a patented enzyme (E. coli purine nucleoside phosphorylase) that has been shown to work with a variety of well-characterized nucleoside prodrugs generating active metabolites with high levels of anti-tumor activity. For a comprehensive review of the preclinical studies leading to the development of Gedeptin^® please see “Parker WB and Sorscher EJ (2017) Use of E. coli purine nucleoside phosphorylase in the treatment of solid tumors. Current Pharmaceutical Design 23: 7027-7048.” The Intellectual property resulting from this work is owned jointly by the UAB Research Foundation and Southern Research Institute of Birmingham, Alabama and has been assigned to GeoVax (www.geovax.com).

The initial investors in PNP Therapeutics included:

• The Birmingham Technology Fund
• Phase I Holdings, LLC
• Southern Research Institute
• UAB Research Foundation
• Vulcan Medical Ventures, Inc.

Basic Premise

Many common cancers (including prostate, breast, colon, lung, brain, melanoma, pancreas, ovarian, kidney) become untreatable despite the best medical intervention and the highest standard of care and are eventually fatal. There are compounds that could abolish these tumors, but these are typically much too toxic to administer systemically to an already debilitated cancer patient. PNP's therapeutic strategy is based on the notion that solid tumors can be programmed to generate their own chemotherapy and thus elicit their own self-destruction. This selectivity is achieved by producing the PNP enzyme directly within the tumor cells and facilitating the interaction between the enzyme and a circulating prodrug in a relatively enclosed environment; the tumor mass itself. We have shown that this mode of chemotherapeutic action is remarkably potent, abolishes otherwise refractory human cancers, and can be used safely because it is executed and confined within the tumor mass.

Board of Directors

• James F. Fuqua
  President, PNP Therapeutics
• J. Claude Bennett, M.D.
  Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Alabama System Board of Trustees
• Lawrence W. Greer, D.D.S., M.B.A.
  Sr. Managing Partner of Greer Capital Advisors, LLC
  Investment Manager for the Birmingham Technology Fund, LLC
• John C. Lankford, Ph.D.
  President, Phase I Holdings, LLC
• Charles K. Porter
  Executive Vice President, Porter White & Company
• William B. Parker, Ph.D.
  Founder of PNP Therapeutics
• Eric J. Sorscher, M.D.
  Professor at the Emory University School of Medicine

Scientific Advisory Board

• Eric J. Sorscher, M.D., Founding Scientist
  Professor at the Emory University School of Medicine
• William B. Parker, Ph.D., Founding Scientist
  PNP Therapeutics
• J. Claude Bennett, M.D., Chair
  Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, University of Alabama System Board of Trustees