Ona amasses $33.9m series A

Ona Therapeutics, a Spain-based cancer therapy developer spun out of ICREA and IRB Barcelona, has gathered €30m ($33.9m) in series A funding from backers such as French state-owned investment bank Bpifrance.
Asabys Partners, Alta Life Sciences, Fund+ and Ysios Capital also contributed to the round.
Founded in 2019, Ona Therapeutics is working on therapeutics that block the pathways which enable fat metabolism, in turn inhibiting cancer cells from metastasising.
The approach has been proven in animal models and could be effective across a wide range of indications, including bladder, breast, gastric, ovarian and prostate cancers as well as melanoma. The treatments could potentially eliminate existing metastases in addition to preventing new ones.
Ona was co-founded by scientific adviser Salvador Aznar-Benitah, a group leader at IRB, together with chief executive Valerie Vanhooren, previously director of R&D at Princeton University’s protein engineering spinout ProteoDesign.
The company will use the money to complete preclinical development of its lead asset and advance it into clinical trials by 2023. Alexandra Tolia, partner at Fund+, will join Ona’s board of directors.
IRB Barcelona is the institute for research in biomedicine established by the government of Catalonia in partnership with University of Barcelona and Barcelona Science Park. ICREA, the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, acts as a foundation that integrates researchers across 50 universities and research centres in Catalonia.
Vanhooren said: “The successful financing underscores the potential of our innovative pipeline. We are delighted by the strong support from Fund+ as well as our existing and new investors and I look forward to leveraging their extensive experience as we develop novel therapies with the potential to treat multiple types of metastatic cancer.”
Asabys Partners previously supplied $1.67m in seed capital in May 2019.