Oncomatryx, a Biscayan biotechnology company, has carried out a capital increase of 15 million euros to start clinical trials with sick people with invasive tumors in Spain and the USA. In this way, after 12 years of research, the firm faces a new phase in the development of its pioneering drugs against tumors metastatic solids.
Current shareholders have attended the capital increase, including BBK and the investment company Ekarpen -which adds the participation of Kutxabank, the Basque Government, the three Basque Provincial Councils and Mondragon Inversiones-, as well as national and international family offices.
The funds from the capital increase, together with Oncomatryx’s recurring income from its license agreements with large international biopharmaceutical companies, will also be used for the clinical development of new drugs (conjugated antibodies) of the pipeline of Oncomatryx against the tumor microenvironment. The total investment in R&D for the three-year period 2022-2024 will be 50 million Euros.
Start of trials in 2022
Its next-generation drug OMTX705, directed against the tumor microenvironment, that is, the cells that surround the tumor and favor its immunosuppression, invasion and metastasis, has already shown great efficacy and safety in animal models.
For this reason, Oncomatryx will begin clinical trials in people in Phase I before the end of 2022.
The pioneering work of the biotechnology company focuses on the development of personalized biopharmaceutical drugs against the tumor microenvironment, to treat invasive stages of cancer, which still have a high mortality rate.
Oncomatryx, located in the Bizkaia Technology Park, has discovered new mechanisms and proteins in the peritumoral stroma, the cells and the extracellular matrix that surround the tumor and facilitate its invasiveness, immunosuppression, resistance to treatment and metastasis.
international collaborations
Oncomatryx has undertaken the development of pioneering drugs against these mechanisms and proteins of the peritumoral stroma, in collaboration with prestigious universities, hospitals and research centers in the US and Europe.
Among them are Harvard University, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Stuttgart, University of Turin, University of Bologna, CIC-Biogune, National Cancer Research Center, Onkologikoa, Virgen del Rocío Hospital, Sant Joan de Deu Hospital and University Hospital Marquis of Valdecilla.
In January 2019, Oncomatryx also closed a capital increase of nine million euros promoted by companies such as Ekarpen, BBK and Basque and Galician family offices.
