Syncona, a life science investor focused on creating, building and scaling global life science companies, has added two novel companies to its portfolio: iOnctura and Yellowstone Biosciences.
The company has invested €30m in iOnctura, a clinical-stage small molecule company cancers with areas of high unmet needs, as well as launching Yellowstone, a novel oncology company developing T-cell receptor (TCR)-based therapies — with a GBP £16.5m commitment.
iOnctura
Syncona has invested €30m as part of a €80m Series B financing, which was led by Syncona and included existing investors Merck Ventures, Inkef Capital, Schroders Capital, VI Partners and the 3B Future Health Fund, as well as new investor the European Innovation Council.
This investment has given Syncona a 23% stake in the business.
iOnctura’s lead candidate, roginolisib, is a first-in-class allosteric modulator of PI3K delta (PI3Kδ), a highly differentiated therapeutic that could treat patients with a range of haematological and oncological malignancies.
Roginolisib has the potential to become the first successful, clinically meaningful therapy to target this critical cancer mechanism.
Syncona is working with the company to explore the breadth of roginolisib’s potential utility.
Yellowstone
Yellowstone is a new biologics company developing soluble bispecific TCR-based therapies to unlock a new class of cancer therapeutics.
Syncona has launched the company with a £16.5 million Series A commitment and will hold a 60.9% stake in the business.
Through access to a biobank of adult AML patients with prior allogeneic blood cell transplantation, Yellowstone has identified a set of biomarkers that could be used as novel targets to treat cancer.
Through privileged access to a biobank of adult acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients that underwent allogeneic blood cell transplantation, Yellowstone has been able to identify a proprietary set of frequently expressed peptide antigens that represent novel biological targets to treat cancer.
Yellowstone has come off the back of the University of Oxford with the support of Oxford University Innovation (OUI) and is built around the pioneering work of renowned academic clinician, Prof. Paresh Vyas, who joins the company as Chief Scientific Officer.
CEO of Syncona Investment Management Limited, Chris Hollowood, said: “Yellowstone represents an opportunity to create and build a company from nascent but exciting science, whilst iOnctura is a significant opportunity to invest in a company which is already delivering differentiated clinical data. Our focus is on differentiated assets that have significant potential to deliver transformational treatments to patients and in settings where an autonomous biotech company can be scaled to deliver products to approval.”