OncoMyx hits $25m

OncoMyx Therapeutics, a US-based cancer immunotherapy spinout of Arizona State University (ASU), yesterday closed a $25m series A round co-led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), the corporate venturing vehicle of pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim.
BIVF co-led the round with private equity firm Delos Capital and 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 oncological immunotherapies.
The agent, a type of poxvirus known as MYXV, has been shown in pre-clinical 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 one of its co-founders, Grant McFadden, professor and the director of ASU’s Biodesign Center for Immunotherapy, Vaccines and Virotherapy. McFadden acts as a research adviser to the spinout.
The series A capital will go towards progressing OncoMyx’s lead program, with the aim of commercialising it as a treatment for multiple indications of cancer.
McFadden has now joined the spinout’s board of directors, with Steve Potts, OncoMyx co-founder and chief executive, Kanad Das, investment director at BIVF, Tim Xiao, principal at Delos Capital, and Jason Rushton, investment partner at Xeraya Capital.
McFadden said: “Oncolytic viruses are emerging as a new pillar of cancer care to complement the effectiveness of immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockade.
“The best-in-class MYXV platform is the only oncolytic virus in development that is collectively a non-human pathogen, inherently immuno-stimulatory, easily multi-armed and systemically delivered.”