Fred Hutch spinout SEngine raises $5.1M to test cancer treatment drugs against a patient’s tumors

Seattle startup SEngine Precision Medicine has raised $5.1 million in fresh funding as it looks to commercialize a platform that can match cancer patients to the right drug and aid in drug discovery. The Series A round was led by the Bangarang Group along with other unnamed investors.

Since every patient’s cancer is unique, it’s important to know which drug or drug combinations will work best. SEngine’s PARIS test grows a patient’s tumor cells in a lab, then analyzes them to determine the safest and most effective medications. Cancer doctors can also pick and choose which drugs they want to test for from SEngine’s library of more than 200 small molecule drugs.

Sometimes the test can lead to surprises, like when one patient’s thyroid cancer tumor responded to a drug developed for ovarian cancer. “The mutations that underlie each individual cancer can be very common, even from very disparate cancer types,” said SEngine CEO Dr. Carla Grandori.

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In the process of testing cancers from a range of different patients, SEngine also collects data that can be valuable in the hunt for new drugs — an application that Grandori says could be far more lucrative than screening tumors for suitable drugs. The startup recently entered a joint venture with San Francisco-based Atomwise aimed at finding new cancer drugs.

“We continue to see the immense potential for Dr. Grandori and her world-class team to radically transform cancer care through their personalized diagnostic platform and novel drug discovery program,” Elliott Burkland, an investor with the Bangarang Group, said in a statement.

The startup’s advisors include Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, as well as Dr. Leland Hartwell, a Nobel Prize Laureate and former president of Fred Hutch. The company hired former Spaceflight Industries executive Tom Neary as chief financial officer in August.

SEngine, which spun out of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in 2015, previously reported raising $3 million that was part of this Series A round. It also received $755,000 in grant funding from the National Institute of Health in May 2018. The company has raised more than $9 million to date.

Source. GeekWire, , James Thorne, October 2 , 2019

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Oncorus Adds $79.5M to Steer Cancer-Fighting Virus to Human Testing

Nearly four years ago, the FDA approved a therapy that uses a virus to infect tumor cells and break them down—the first such viral therapy for treating cancer. Oncorus CEO Ted Ashburn says there’s room to improve on these oncolytic viruses and their role in immunotherapy, and his biotech startup is getting ready to show how.

Oncorus is planning to begin a clinical trial next year testing its cancer-fighting virus in solid tumors. The Cambridge, MA, company now has $79.5 million in financing to support its research. The Series B round of funding announced Wednesday was co-led by Cowen Healthcare Investments and Perceptive Advisors.

Research on oncolytic viruses dates to the 1960s. The concept involves using a virus, one that occurs naturally or is engineered, to infect a tumor cell. Once inside the tumor, the virus replicates until it causes the cell to explode, killing it. These cells deaths lead to the immunotherapy step of the treatment. Tumor antigens are released that trigger the immune system to recognize and fight the cancer.

The first FDA-approved oncolytic virus, talimogene laherparepvec (Imlygic), is based on a modified herpes simplex virus. The Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) therapy is injected into the tumor, where the virus replicates and produces a protein intended to stimulate an immune system response. The FDA’s 2015 approval of the Amgen therapy covered melanoma that cannot be treated with surgery.

Like Amgen’s oncolytic virus, lead Oncorus drug candidate ONCR-177 is based on a modified version of the herpes virus. But Ashburn says that Oncorus has made advances in the way it engineers the virus to enable it to carry a bigger therapeutic payload. Onboard ONCR-177 are five anti-cancer proteins that stimulate different parts of the immune system.

“In effect what you’re doing is causing a robust, therapeutic, personalized vaccination for the patient,” says Ashburn.

The Oncorus virus also comes with additional safety measures. Ashburn says ONCR-177 is engineered to replicate only in tumor cells, not in healthy tissue. At the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in April, Oncorus presented preclinical data showing that treatment with ONCR-177 partially or completely shrunk tumors, and the viral therapy led to protective immunity. Ashburn adds that the safety measures appeared to work: No signs of the virus or its therapeutic payload were detected outside of the tumor.

Ashburn says he envisions ONCR-177 being used in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy that blocks proteins that stop the immune system from recognizing and fighting cancer cells. But in some instances, the oncolytic virus could find use as a standalone treatment, he says.

The company has a second therapeutic candidate in its pipeline based on a synthetic oncolytic virus. Ashburn says this virus is meant to be given intravenously, and that it would circulate throughout the body. Using this approach would allow the virus to potentially treat a wider range of tumors, including lung cancer, where direct injection of a therapy is not practical because it risks puncturing the organ, he says.

Oncorus plans to use the new capital to finance Phase 1 tests of ONCR-177. The company will also continue development of its synthetic oncolytic virus. Ashburn says he expects the company will identify a candidate from that platform early next year.

The research that underpins Oncorus was conducted within venture capital firm MPM Capital until the company spun out in 2016 with $57 million in financing. MPM also participated in the latest Oncorus financing, which included participation from other earlier investors UBS Oncology Impact Fund, Deerfield Management, Arkin Bioventures, Celgene (NASDAQ: CELG), and Astellas Venture Management. New investors in the Series B round include Surveyor Capital, Sphera Funds, IMM Investment, QUAD Investment Management, UTC Investment, SV Investment Corp., and Shinhan Investment-Private Equity.

Source. Frank Vinluan, Xconomy, August 21, 2019

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