US-based cancer immunotherapy developer OncoMyx Therapeutics closed a $25m series A round yesterday co-led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the corporate venturing vehicle for pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim.
BIVF co-led the round with private equity firm Delos Capital and life sciences investment vehicle Xeraya Capital, while Korea Investment Partners, City Hill Ventures and Madison Partners also participated.
Founded in 2018, OncoMyx Therapeutics aims to exploit an oncolytic agent – a virus that selectively infects cancer cells – as the basis for enhanced cancer immunotherapies.
The agent, a type of poxvirus known as MYXV, has been shown in preclinical models to activate an anti-tumour immune response, and would be used alongside existing cancer immunotherapy approaches such as immune checkpoint inhibitors.
OncoMyx Therapeutics builds on research led by co-founder Grant McFadden, professor and the director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines and Virotherapy. McFadden is also a research adviser to the spinout.
The series A capital will go to progressing OncoMyx’s lead program, with the aim of commercialising it as a treatment for multiple indications of cancer. BIVF investment director Kanad Das has joined the startup’s board of directors along with McFadden, Tim Xiao of Delos Capital and Jason Rushton from Xeraya Capital.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.