Financing proceeds to fund further platform development and therapeutic discovery in cancer and rare diseases, and expansion of Orum’s new Boston R&D labs
BOSTON and DAEJEON, South Korea – Orum Therapeutics announced today an oversubscribed $30 million Series B financing. New investors, IMM Investment, Smilegate Investment, KTB Network, and Stassets Investment, join existing investors, InterVest and KB Investment/Solidus Investment in the financing. The proceeds of the financing will be used to expand OromabTM, Orum’s proprietary cell-specific, cell-penetrating antibody platform technology that targets “undruggable” proteins and delivers a variety of therapeutic payloads. The company is applying the Oromab platform to discover and develop novel therapeutics for cancer and rare diseases, both internally and with partners. The financing will also further expand Orum’s R&D labs in Korea and Boston, where the company was recently accepted into a biotech incubator in Kendall Square, Cambridge.
“A large number of important therapeutic targets are currently considered ‘undruggable,’ making drug discovery for these targets technically challenging,” said Sung Joo Lee, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Orum Therapeutics. “By intracellular delivery of antibodies, our platform redefines what undruggable means.”
Using the Oromab platform, Orum builds antibodies that bind cell-specific receptors and are internalized through receptor-mediated endocytosis. With Orum’s proprietary design, these antibodies escape the early endosome into the cytosol. Once in the cytosol, the antibodies can be therapeutically active and directly target disease-causing proteins or deliver payloads. With the Oromab platform, Orum is exploring several therapeutic avenues: 1) inhibiting Ras and tumor-specific intracellular oncogenic drivers, 2) delivery of oligonucleotides or enzymes for cancer and rare diseases, and 3) targeted degradation of disease proteins.
“Orum’s cell-penetrating antibody platform is unique in that, it has the capacity to not only transform the landscape of druggable targets, but also overcome the limitation of cytosolic delivery of other therapeutic modalities,” said Peter Park, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Orum Therapeutics.
Contacts:
Sung Joo Lee, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Orum Therapeutics, +82-42-716-3030, contact@orumrx.com
Jessica Yingling, Ph.D., President, Little Dog Communications, +1-858-344-8091, jessica@litldog.com
