Oncorus, Inc., a Cambridge, MA-based new immuno-oncology company, received an additional £4m in Series A funding.
Astellas Venture Management, the corporate venture arm of Astellas Pharma Inc., provided the funding bringing the total amount raised by the company in the round to $61m. Astellas joined a team of investors led by MPM Capital (with equal contributions from MPM BV2014 and the Oncology Impact Fund), and included Deerfield Management, Arkin Bio Ventures, Celgene, Inc., Excelyrate Capital, Long March Investment Fund and MPM’s SunStates Fund.
Proceeds from the Series A financing round are being used to advance Oncorus’s immunotherapy platform using its oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV). In July, Oncorus announced that it raised a $57 million Series A financing.
Led by Mitchell H. Finer, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, and Cyrus D. Mozayeni, M.D., President and Chief Business Officer, Oncorus is a new immuno-oncology company developing a next-generation immunotherapy platform of oncolytic viruses for the treatment of several tumor types including highly malignant and aggressive cancers such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM),
Oncorus licensed certain patent rights from the University of Pittsburgh based upon the work of scientists Joseph Glorioso III, Ph.D., and Paola Grandi, Ph.D., who will join Oncorus’s Scientific Advisory Board. The company will invest in researching and developing oncolytic viral constructs which will move through preclinical development and ultimately into clinical trials. Currently, its lead candidate is in preclinical development for GBM. The company will also expand and improve its technology platform and accelerate the development of pipeline programs in other forms of cancer.
FinSMEs
13/12/2016