While a big chunk of on­col­o­gy re­search is fo­cused on tar­get­ing T-cell reg­u­la­tors to stamp out can­cer, iOmx Ther­a­peu­tics is hom­ing in on im­mune check­point tar­gets on tu­mor cells — and it’s just re­ceived an­oth­er $75.3 mil­lion to fu­el their push to­ward the clin­ic.

iOmx un­veiled the €65 mil­lion Se­ries B round on Tues­day morn­ing, rough­ly five years af­ter emerg­ing from stealth. The new cash will help the start­up put its first can­di­date, an SIK3 ki­nase in­hibitor called IMT-07, in the clin­ic late next year for sol­id tu­mors.

Right be­hind that pro­gram is an IGSF11-tar­get­ing an­ti­body to treat PD-1/PD-L1-re­sis­tant tu­mors, which is al­so in the lead op­ti­miza­tion stage, ac­cord­ing to iOmx’s web­site.

“Us­ing our iO­Targ plat­form, we have pre­vi­ous­ly iden­ti­fied two nov­el im­mune-check­point mol­e­cules ex­pressed by can­cer cells, SIK3 and IGSF11, and shown that block­ing these tar­gets with our pro­pri­etary drug can­di­dates has an­ti-tu­mor ef­fects and the po­ten­tial to treat tu­mors that can­not oth­er­wise be ad­dressed by ex­ist­ing im­mune ther­a­pies,” CEO Apol­lon Pa­padim­itri­ou said in a state­ment.

Pa­padim­itri­ou was tapped as CEO back in 2019, tak­ing the reins from Se­bas­t­ian Meier-Ew­ert, who gave up his job as a man­ag­ing part­ner at MPM Cap­i­tal to take the lead at iOmx. Meier-Ew­ert is now at Roscue Ther­a­peu­tics, ac­cord­ing to his LinkedIn. Be­fore tak­ing the helm, Pa­padim­itri­ou was iOmx’s chief de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cer for two years.

The biotech isn’t say­ing much about its pro­grams for now. But ac­cord­ing to its web­site, there’s al­so a third can­di­date (an undis­closed mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body) in the works.

iOmx co-founder Philipp Beck­hove did much of the com­pa­ny’s foun­da­tion re­search while work­ing at the Ger­man Can­cer Re­search Cen­ter in Hei­del­berg and is now at the RCI Re­gens­burg Cen­ter for In­ter­ven­tion­al Im­munol­o­gy. The com­pa­ny’s screen­ing plat­form was de­vel­oped by co-founder Nisit Khan­del­w­al, SVP of re­search. Al­so among the com­pa­ny’s co-founders are Patrick Baeuer­le, who’s laud­ed as a pi­o­neer in the bis­pe­cif­ic space; and El­mar Maier, cur­rent CEO at EM Biotech.

“In the vi­tal world of can­cer im­munother­a­py, iOmx’s plat­form tech­nol­o­gy stands out be­cause it screens for nov­el drug­gable im­mune check­point tar­gets on tu­mor cells in­stead of T cells, there­by al­low­ing the de­vel­op­ment of drugs that can pre­vent tu­mor im­mune eva­sion,” said Matthias Kro­may­er, man­ag­ing part­ner at MIG Cap­i­tal, which co-led the Se­ries B round.

Athos Ser­vice (the Strüng­mann fam­i­ly of­fice) al­so helped lead the round, and Welling­ton Part­ners, Sofinno­va Part­ners and M Ven­tures chipped in.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.