Immunophotonics has closed an initial $10 million in Series C financing and promoted Robert H. Arch, Ph.D., from president to president and CEO. Arch, who has been with the company for nearly two years, succeeds Miguel Zubizarreta, interim CEO since 2025, who stays on the board. The lead investor is not being disclosed; many existing shareholders took part.
Robert Arch, Immunophotonics President and CEO
“It gives us a two-year runway, which is absolutely important for us to execute on our clinical development plan,” Arch told bizblip. The company has investigator-initiated trials underway in Europe and the United States. Arch said the money buys the time to carry those trials to their clinical readouts, the milestones the company plans to reach over the next two years.
Founded in 2008 in Columbia, Mo., Immunophotonics is a privately held clinical-stage company with headquarters in St. Louis and a European office in Bern, Switzerland. Its lead candidate, IP-001, is a glycan polymer injected after routine ablation or radiation, treatments that destroy a single tumor. The drug is designed to prompt the immune system to seek out and destroy cancer cells left elsewhere in the body. The company holds more than 50 patents worldwide and has 12 to 14 full-time employees, a team Arch said will not grow with this round.
The company has now raised about $41.5 million. Earlier backing includes a $21.4 million Series B led by ROVAQ Ventures and Zubizoom Investments in 2022, a $1.5 million venture round in February 2023, and money from BioGenerator, Cultivation Capital, iSelect Fund, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and St. Louis Arch Angels. The National Institutes of Health has awarded SBIR grants totaling $2.4 million since 2021.
“Biotech companies, even clinical biotech companies, are struggling to raise the money they need to do clinical studies, and our shareholders have been supportive,” Arch said. “They believe in our mission. They believe in our pioneering efforts in interventional immunology. That sets us apart as a company here in St. Louis.”
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