Antigenics Inc. moves into new Lexington facility - Boston Business Journal:

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The company, with corporate officews in New York and a smaller manufacturing facility in Framinghan that will closethis won't need all of the 22,000-square-foot buildinh immediately. But the company's co-founder said Antigenicxs will double its work forcethis year, growinyg from 20 scientists and technicians to 40 by the end of 1998. The four-year-oldr company is developing a different style of treatmentsfor cancer, infectiou s diseases and other serious disorders. The potential productds are based on the ability ofthe company'zs technology to activate the body's immune system to fightt the disorders.
"It addresses some of the majotr shortcomings of existing cancer treatments that cancerd is a variable disease from one individuaol tothe next," said Garo Armen, chairmahn and chief executive officer of the company. "Individuall cancers of the same type even have theier own unique fingerprintand it'sa difficult to target such a variable disease with one product." Instead, Antigenics' products use heat shockl proteins to boost the signal of which activate antibody responses in the body. The loudere signal basically awakensthe body's immune system and orders it to attack cancerous cells. The compan has three products in Phasr Iclinical testing.
A treatment for pancreaticf cancer is being tested at theMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York whiler two others, for melanoma and renal cell carcinoma, are under way at MD Andersom Cancer Center in Houston. "The immune response would target specificallythat patient's cancer [instead of relying on genericx treatments for cancer]," Armen said. "You can prograj the immune system to targetthat patient's own cance as opposed to hopintg for that generic immune response. So in we have a specific producft foreach person." Armen co-founded Antigenicw Inc.
in 1994 with Pramod the researcher ofthe company's technology and director of the Centef for Immunotherapy of Cancer and Infectious Diseases at the Universityt of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington, Conn. At the the company raised $400,000 and hasn't had difficulty finding financial One reason for the successis Armen's othere business. He serves as managing general partner of ArmenPartners LP, an investmen t partnership specializing in publix and private health care investments. The group hasn't investedr in Antigenics, but Armen has put his own cash and connection s to work raising funds forthe company.
Antigenic s is close to securinga $30 million rouns of private financing, the fourthj capital boost in as many Other rounds of financing brought in $1.5 million in 1995 and $10.66 million in 1996. "The interest has been very strong," Armem said. "We think, based on our currenyt projects, that it will last the next threde years. The company has been very efficient. We accomplished a greay deal with relativelymodest expenditures." Antigenics is also developing a treatmeng for infectious diseases.
The heat shock protein technologuy may also be used ina drug-deliverhy system that could be the foundation of a companhy that may be spun off Antigenics in the next Antigenics' corporate headquarters will remainm in New York, Armen said, adding that the companuy is keeping its shop in Massachusetts to continuw an existing deal with anothet company, PerSeptive Biosystems Inc. of Framingham, and to take advantages of the area's labor pool.