First-in-class drugs preventing cancer immune evasion.

Platform Overview

The clinical successes of anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD1/PD-L1 immune-checkpoint inhibitors have been transformative in certain tumor indications. However, as promising as they are to date, they do not benefit a large proportion of patients and are only regarded as the beginning of cancer immunotherapy.

iOmx’s founders have developed a systematic, high-throughput genetic screening approach, called iOTargTM, that allows the comprehensive identification of checkpoint molecules, i.e. ligands on human cancer cells that inhibit T cell-mediated tumor cell killing. To date, this screening technology has been applied to tumor cells derived from multiple tumor entities and is continuously expanding. Several novel targets have been identified and validated, using clinical tumor samples and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Many of them exhibit stronger inhibition of T cell killing than PD-L1 in classical assays, with interesting and novel modes of actions.

iOmx's proprietary next-generation immunotherapy programs are based on the iOTargTM immune-checkpoint target discovery platform, which is designed to increase the clinical impact of immune-checkpoint therapies.

Relevant Publication

Salt-inducible kinase 3 protects tumor cells from cytotoxic T-cell attack by promoting TNF-induced NF-κB activation
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OMX-0407, a highly potent SIK3 inhibitor, sensitizes tumor cells to cell death and eradicates immune-checkpoint resistant tumors synergistically in combination with PD-1 inhibition
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A high‐throughput RNAi screen for detection of immune‐checkpoint molecules that mediate tumor resistance to cytotoxic T lymphocytes.
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