Syncona has added two up-and-coming cancer companies to its portfolio, ensuring the biotechs are armed with a combined total of over $100 million in series A and B funds.
The Netherlands-based biotech is focused on lead asset roginolisib, which is described as the first allosteric modulator of PI3Kδ. The candidate has already demonstrated long-term safety and promising efficacy in a phase 1b trial in a rare eye cancer called uveal melanoma (UM), the biotech said in a June 20 release.
“To date, no company has been able to successfully target this well-known cancer pathway with sufficient precision,” Roel Bulthuis, managing partner and head of investments at Syncona as well as a board member of iOnctura, said in the release. “By allosterically modulating PI3Kδ, iOnctura has achieved a new level of precision and could be the first company to develop a clinically meaningful medicine targeting this pathway.”
The other cancer-focused biotech that Syncona has parked in its portfolio is Yellowstone, a U.K.-based company targeting human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class II expression in a range of common cancers.
Syncona has given the preclinical company, which spun out of the University of Oxford, £16.5 million ($20.9 million) in series A funds to build up its pipeline. The biotech is founded on the work of Paresh Vyas, Ph.D., a professor of hematology at the university who built up a biobank of samples from over 3,000 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).