Could OMass become the UK's 'big biotech' company?
OMass chief executive Ros Deegan.
Oxford, UK-based OMass Therapeutics' ambition to join the 'big biotech' ranks has been bolstered by an impressive £230 million ($310 million) third-round financing.
That is the second-largest for a European biotech this year – second only to the $2.1 billion Series B for fellow UK company Isomorphic Labs – and will fuel the development of OMass' lead drug OMS1620 for rare hormonal disorders.
The Series C brings the total amount that OMass has raised to approximately £360 million ($475 million).
OMS1620 is a melanocortin-2 (MC2) receptor antagonist in early-stage clinical development, with potential to address diseases characterised by excessive levels of the hormone adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). It has been designed to bind to and stick to the MC2 receptor for a long time, maintaining activity as levels of ACTH rise, which OMass thinks could translate into a 'best-in-class' profile.
The new cash will help to fund phase 2 trials of the drug in ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome (ADCS) and congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), and also allow OMass to start clinical testing of a second candidate, an SLC15A4 inhibitor, which is being developed for lupus and other diseases associated with interferon overproduction and pathogenic B-cell activation.
The drug is a potential rival to Vertex Pharma's MC2 antagonist atumelnant, added to its pipeline through the recently closed $10 billion acquisition of Crinetics, which has advanced into late-stage development for CAH and is in phase 2 for ADCS.
OMass' chief executive, Ros Deegan, said the new round means that the 10-year-old company is "entering our next phase of growth with the resources to translate that progress into a portfolio of clinically differentiated medicines for patients."
The Series C was co-led by new investors Bain Capital Life Sciences, Forbion, and Novo Holdings, with Janus Henderson Investors, SV Health Investors, and Jefferson Life Sciences also joining. Every existing investor took part, including Syncona, GV, Sanofi Ventures, and Northpond Ventures.
Forbion principal Audrey Cacaly said OMass' two lead programmes are "part of a pipeline built entirely through internal discovery, underscoring the productivity and breadth of OMass' platform and its potential to generate meaningful new medicines across endocrine and immunologic diseases."
OMass was built around a drug discovery platform, OdyssION, that uses native mass spectrometry to detect drug candidates that bind a molecular target and identify their functional effects.
The platform combines biochemistry, native mass spectrometry, and custom chemistry to investigate protein interactions within a cellular ecosystem while filtering out the "confounding complexity" of other cellular factors.
The platform has already attracted one major partnership with a big pharma partner, Roche, whose Genentech unit has pledged up to $420 million to a project that aims to deliver new therapies for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
