The field of immuno-oncology is exciting for investors, patients and physicians, with a daily drum beat of new efforts being undertaken to battle cancer.
Add Oncorus to that growing chorus.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts, startup launched on Tuesday announcing that it has raised $57 million in a Series A funding round. Oncorus aims to develop a next-generation immunotherapy platform of oncolytic viruses to treat various kinds of tumors, including highly malignant and aggressive cancers such as glioblastoma multiforme.
The round was led by MPM Capital and included Deerfield Management, Arkin Bio Ventures, Celgene, Excelyrate Capital, Long March Investment Fund and MPM’s SunStates Fund.
What follows is a slightly edited version of responses via email that Mitchell Finer, co-founder and CEO of Oncorus provided:
MedCity: How will the money be used?
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Finer: Proceeds from the Series A financing round will be used to advance Oncorus’s immunotherapy platform using its next-generation oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV).
Oncorus will invest in research and development of oncolytic viral constructs, which will move through preclinical development and ultimately into clinical trials. Currently, the company’s lead candidate — ONCR-001 — is in preclinical development for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a highly malignant and aggressive cancer affecting the brain or spinal cord. The company will also expand and improve its technology platform and accelerate the development of pipeline programs in other forms of cancer.
MedCity: There are numerous immuno-oncology firms developing treatments. Who are your competitors?
Finer: The approval in 2015 of Amgen’s IMLYGIC (talimogene herparvovec), also known as TVEC, established a clear regulatory path for the development of oncolytic virus immunotherapy.
Similar to TVEC, Oncorus’s immunotherapy platform acts both locally at the site of injection through oncolysis and systemically by stimulating the immune response against the patient’s tumor burden distributed across the body.
ONCR-001, our lead candidate, is injected directly into a patient’s tumor. Upon replication, it will release multiple tumor antigens, which is a kind of “cancer signature” that has the potential to trigger an immune response.
As a consequence, oncolytic vector therapy can be defined as the “ultimate” personalized medicine since, upon receiving the therapy, each patient will develop an immune response against their own specific tumor antigens (signatures).
The Oncorus approach improves upon first generation oncolytic viruses by not having to remove genes from the virus, thereby dramatically improving the potency of the virus. This provides greater killing of tumor cells, which has been demonstrated in animal models.
MedCity: What do you mean by next-gen?
Finer: Oncorus’s oncolytic viruses retain all viral genes required for robust viral replication in a tumor-specific fashion simultaneously enhancing safety by prohibiting replication in normal cells. This approach also leads to a virus that can modulate the tumor microenvironment, facilitating a systemic anti-tumor T-cell immune response.
The virus is designed to replicate at maximum productivity, enabling robust and scalable manufacturing. Delivery by local injection utilizing standard of care further enables this therapy to be easily integrated into current medical practice.
To specifically target cancer cells, Oncorus utilizes differences in genetic control sequences between normal cells and cancer cells, which restricts viral replication to tumor cells and leaves normal cells intact.
Replication of oHSV is under the control of micro-RNAs, which are fundamentally different in normal cells versus cancer cells. Micro RNAs (miRs) are short non-coding RNAs that regulate the ability of classical messenger RNA (mRNAs) to be translated into protein or to promote the degradation of classical mRNAs. By engineering miR binding sites into essential viral genes, upon virus entry into normal cells, replication is blocked and the virus is dead. However, tumor cells lack cell specific miRs (i.e., brain tumor cells lack neuron specific miRs). In the absence of these cell-specific miRs, the virus is free to replicate to its full potential.
MedCity: What other cancers can Oncorus treat other than glioblastoma?
Oncorus’s technology is a platform that we hope can be applied to many types of cancer. The differential expression of miR between tumor cells and normal adjacent has been observed in almost every tumor type, therefore we believe that this could be a promising approach for many types of cancer.
MedCity: We are hearing the word “cure” being used vis-a-vis more often. How realistic is that goal?
Finer: Traditionally, cancer therapies have offered limited duration responses. With advances immune-oncology, we are beginning to see more remissions that are more durable. We believe that oncolytic virus approaches may be able to play an important role in the immune-oncology field, particularly in indications such as GBM, where there is very high unmet need for patients.
MedCity: Has the Cancer Moonshot initiative helped Oncorus in any way?
Finer: Vice President Biden’s initiative to create resources to help find cures for cancer is an enormous boost to the research community both in the private and public sectors. The National Cancer Institute will receive nearly $1B in new funds to support cancer prevention, diagnostics, genomics immunotherapy, and clinical trials. These basic research advances will benefit the entire immune-oncology field, and we believe that Oncorus is well-positioned to help translate these discoveries into novel, innovative therapies for cancer patients.
Photo: Getty, Paul Bradbury
