Date: 2017-01-19
Type of information: Series A financing round
Company: Octimet Oncology (Belgium)
Investors: V-Bio Ventures (Belgium) Fund+ (Belgium) DROIA Oncology Ventures (Luxembourg/Belgium) OMNES Capital (France)
Amount: € 11.3 million
Funding type: series A financing round
Planned used: Octimet Oncology was founded in 2016 by Timothy Perera PhD, Ann Meulemans PhD, Paolo Comoglio, MD, PhD and Philip Owen. The company has licensed highly selective MET kinase inhibitors from Janssen Pharmaceutica. The funds will enable Octimet to accelerate the clinical development of these MET kinase inhibitors, as single agent or in combination with standard of care and targeted agents for the treatment of solid cancers. Octimet's lead product, OMO-1, is a selective small molecule MET kinase inhibitor that has demonstrable single agent cellular and in vivo activity only in MET driven preclinical models. OMO-1 has recently been explored in a healthy volunteer trial where predicted efficacious exposures were reached without any significant adverse events. Available dose and exposure correlations and optimal dosing regimes that were defined in this healthy volunteer trial will guide and expedite clinical evaluation in forthcoming patient trials.
The MET oncogene activated signalling pathway is known to be hyper-activated in identifiable subsets of a range of major cancer types. The MET receptor has recently been demonstrated to be a functional marker of cancer stem like cells that are responsible for the development of resistance to radiotherapy and a number of chemotherapy and targeted anti-cancer agents. Inhibition of the MET kinase signalling pathway has been demonstrated to block MET driven cancers and overcome MET induced resistance to a range of therapeutic agents leading, in some cases, to the cure of tumor bearing preclinical animals.
The clean safety profile observed in the healthy volunteer trial needs to be confirmed in an accelerated Phase 1 dose escalation study carried out in non selected cancer patients followed by demonstrating evidence of clinical activity in a MET biomarker selected expansion cohort. A Phase 2a study to confirm activity in MET biomarker selected population will generate proof of concept data to support a larger registration trial.
The company is also developing OMO-2, a differentiated follow-up MET-inhibitor with similar high selectivity that is in late non-clinical development.
Others: * On January 19, 2017, Octimet Oncology has secured € 11.3 million in a Series A investment round, enabling the company to accelerate the clinical development of clinically de-risked MET kinase inhibitors, as single agent or in combination with standard of care and targeted agents for the treatment of solid cancers. The funding round was led by V-Bio Ventures (Belgium) and Fund+ (Belgium), and further supported by a strong international investment syndicate including DROIA Oncology Ventures (Luxembourg/Belgium) and OMNES Capital (France). OCTIMET has obtained a feasibility grant from Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) that facilitated the company formation. Seed funding was received from the VIB (Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie), to support an R&D collaboration with Prof. Massimiliano Mazzone at the Center for Cancer Biology (KU Leuven), and further seed funding from the lead investors was used to generate data to direct clinical indication selection. Post-closing, the Board of Directors will be composed of Dr Timothy Perera (Octimet), Christina Takke (V-Bio Ventures), Jan Van den Bossche (Fund+), Janwillem Naesens (DROIA Oncology) and Bruno Montanari (Omnes Capital).
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
