Merck KGaA’s 2017 Swiss cancer spin-out iOnctura SA has raised €15m to bring its PI3Kδ inhibitor and autotaxin inhibitor to the clinic.
The Series A round was led by Dutch investor INKEF Capital, and Swiss VI Partners AG and Zurich-based investor Schroder Adveq as new co-investors. Existing investors M Ventures also participated in the round aimed at bringing the two programmes to the clinic within the next 12 months.
iOnctura SA’s PI3Kδ blocker IOA-244 is designed to help patients with immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment to inhibit regulatory T cell (Treg) activity in order to boost efficacy of checkpoint inhibitors of chemotherapeutics while preventing liver toxicity and side effects observed with approved PI3Kδ inhibitors such as Gilead Science’s blood cancer drug idelalisib and non-selective PI3K blockers such as duvelisib (Verastem Inc.) or, copanlisib (Bayer AG).
The autotaxin blocker IOA-289, which was licenced from Cancer Research UK, is a pulmonary fibrosis inhibitorand cancer drug, which will be targeted against pancreatic cancer first.
https://european-biotechnology.com/up-to-date/latest-news/news/ionctura-sa-bags-eur15m-in-series-a-round.html
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