22 August 2019 - - US-based oncolytic virus company Oncorus, Inc has completed an oversubscribed USD 79.5m series B financing, the company said.

Cowen Healthcare Investments and Perceptive Advisors co-led the financing, with participation from Oncorus' syndicate of series A investors including MPM Capital, UBS Oncology Impact Fund, Deerfield Management, Arkin Bioventures, Celgene and Astellas Venture Management. Additional new investors include Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Sphera Funds, IMM Investment, QUAD Investment Management, UTC Investment, SV Investment Corp. and Shinhan Investment-Private Equity.

Oncorus plans to use the series B proceeds to advance its lead candidate, ONCR-177, into the clinic in early 2020. ONCR-177 is an intratumorally administered oncolytic virus clinical candidate for multiple solid tumor indications.

ONCR-177 is built on the company's next-generation oncolytic herpes simplex virus platform, which enables the development of oncolytic viruses with unparalleled payload capacity for potent activation of multiple arms of the immune system.

Oncorus' oHSV platform also uniquely enables full replication competency and selective attenuation in normal tissues to cause not only direct tumor destruction, but also exposure of all neoantigens within a tumor to the immune system in a highly immune activating environment.

Oncorus also intends to progress its innovative synthetic oncolytic virus platform, which employs a novel delivery methodology to enable repeat, intravenous (systemic) administration of oncolytic viruses for the treatment of cancers, particularly in indications such as lung cancer where repeat, intratumoral administration is not feasible.

Robert L. Kirkman, M.D. and Spencer Nam, M.B.A. will join Oncorus' board of directors as part of this round of financing.

Kirkman currently serves as executive chairman of Trillium Therapeutics, Inc. and was most recently president and chief executive officer of Oncothyreon, Inc. Nam is a managing partner of KSV Global and previously worked as a senior research fellow at the Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.

ONCR-177, an intratumorally administered oncolytic virus therapy for the treatment of multiple solid tumor indications, is built on Oncorus' proprietary, next-generation oncolytic herpes simplex virus platform.

It is armed with five transgenes, IL-12, CCL4, FLT3L, and CTLA-4 and PD-1 antagonists representing the largest payload in the oncolytic virus therapy class for the stimulation of multiple arms of the immune system.

ONCR-177 is also a fully replication-competent virus in that it retains the ability to express γ34.5, which allows the virus to replicate in the presence of host antiviral immune responses, a feature unique among oncolytic HSV therapies.

The ability to develop a heavily armed virus with native replication competency is enabled by propriety safety strategies that involve micro-RNA attenuation and inactivation of neuronal retrograde transport to enable selective and unattenuated viral replication in tumor cells, while preventing replication in healthy tissues.

Oncorus presentedpreclinical data supporting the clinical advancement of ONCR-177 at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting earlier this year.

At Oncorus, we are driving innovation to deliver next-generation, best-in-class oncolytic virus therapies to transform outcomes for cancer patients. 

The company is advancing a portfolio of intratumorally and intravenously administered oncolytic virus therapies for a broad spectrum of indications with significant unmet needs based on our oncolytic herpes simplex virus and synthetic oncolytic virus platforms.