iOmx Therapeutics appoints Professor Frances Balkwill to the Scientific Advisory Board
08 Sep 2022
First in Class
Eminent tumor microenvironment expert supports iOmx to advance its development programs for myeloid targeting therapies
Martinsried / Munich, Germany, 7 September 2022 - iOmx Therapeutics AG (iOmx), a biopharmaceutical company developing cancer therapeutics based on next-generation immune checkpoint targets, today announced the appointment of Frances Balkwill, Professor of Cancer Biology at Barts Cancer InstituteCancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
Prof. Philipp Beckhove, Chair of the iOmx’ SAB and co-founder of iOmx, commented: “We are fortunate to have Frances Balkwill join our team of scientific advisors. With her outstanding expertise in tumor microenvironment biology, she will play an important role in advancing iOmx’ high-throughput screening platform iOTarg™ for novel myeloid checkpoint discovery and translating the findings into new biological treatments.”
Professor Frances Balkwill, Professor at Barts Cancer InstituteCancer Institute and member of iOmx’ SAB said: “Cancer treatment has seen a revolution with the success of T-cell checkpoint inhibitors in certain tumor indications. A deeper understanding of the tumor microenvironment and in particular the role of immunosuppressive tumor associated macrophages (TAMs), which are abundant in multiple solid tumors, will enable us to further unlock the immune system’s ability to defeat previously untreatable cancers.”
Dr. Nisit Khandelwal, Senior Vice-President Research and co-founder of iOmx, added: “Recent advances have shown that reprogramming immunosuppressive TAMs to a more pro-inflammatory subtype by targeting myeloid-associated immune checkpoints is a viable therapeutic strategy with encouraging preclinical and early clinical signs, both in monotherapy as well as in combination with anti-PD1. We are applying our powerful iOTarg™ genetic discovery platform to systematically elucidate the entire immunoregulatory gene circuitry in suppressive primary macrophages at a scale that has not been attempted before. This enables us to discover novel druggable myeloid checkpoints.”
Professor Balkwill, OBE, FMedSci, is a renowned expert in tumor microenvironment and translational tumor biology. She is Deputy Lead of the Centre for Tumour Microenvironment at Barts Cancer InstituteCancer Institute, is a Trustee of Blood Cancer UK and chairs the Research Advisory Committee of Prostate Cancer UK. She also serves on Cancer Research UK (CRUK) grant committees and is Deputy Chair of CRUK Clinical Trials Committee. Professor Balkwill's research is focused on the tumor microenvironment of ovarian cancer, where she investigates the link between cancer and inflammation.
Furthermore, she is Director of the Centre of the Cell ( ), an informal biomedical science learning center for children at Queen Mary University of London, and has produced several science books for children on cell and molecular biology.
About iOmx Therapeutics
iOmx Therapeutics ( ) is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing first-in-class cancer immuno-therapeutics addressing novel immune checkpoints hijacked by cancer cells. Utilizing its iOTarg™ high-throughput screening platform, iOmx has identified a number of proprietary tumor-associated next-generation immune checkpoints and is advancing a preclinical stage pipeline of promising drug candidates that have the potential to address cancers that are resistant to current immunotherapies. The company’s lead program IMT-07 targets SIK3, an immune protective kinase in multiple solid tumors. Founded in 2016 based on the work of its scientific founders Philipp Beckhove, MD, and Nisit Khandelwal, Ph.D., conducted at the German Cancer Research CenterCancer Research Center, iOmx is backed by international venture capital investors, such as Wellington Partners, Sofinnova Partners and M Ventures as well as MIG Capital and Athos Biopharma. iOmx is based in Martinsried/Munich, Germany.
Contact
MC Services AG
Katja Arnold, Julia von Hummel, Shaun Brown
T: +49(0)89 2102280
iomx@mc-services.eu
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