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.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals is making a name for itself, at least in terms of suing the FDA.

The DC-headquartered firm on Monday filed its latest suit against the agency, with the company raising concerns over the FDA’s failure to grant a fast track designation for Vanda’s potential chronic digestive disorder drug tradipitant, which is a neurokinin 1 receptor antagonist.

Specifically, Vanda said FDA’s “essential point” in its one-page denial letter on the designation pointed to “the lack of necessary safety data,” which was “inconsistent with the criteria for … Fast Track designation.”

SpringWorks Therapeutics thinks it has cemented the backbone for its first “pipeline-in-a-product” oncology treatment and will send it to the FDA before the clock strikes 2023 with a Phase III win on Tuesday.

The oral gamma secretase inhibitor, dubbed nirogacestat, beat placebo on the primary goal of progression-free survival in adults with progressing desmoid tumors.

The soft-tissue tumors can lead to long-lasting pain, disfigurement and amputation, and there are currently no approved meds for the rare oncology indication. The tumors typically impact patients aged 20 to 44 years old and disproportionately affect women at rates 2 to 3 times higher, with up to a total of 1,650 new cases diagnosed in the US annually, according to SpringWorks.