Ona Therapeutics, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has closed a €30-million Series A round of funding with Catalan investment funds Asabys, Alta Life Sciences and Ysios Capital, Belgian FundPlus and French fund BPI France.

Ona Therapeutics was founded in 2019 by IRB Barcelona, ICREA and scientists Salvador Aznar-Benitah and Valerie Vanhooren, with backing from Asabys, which was instrumental in putting together the Series A round. The company is based at the Barcelona Science Park.

"This capital injection gives us the means to develop our biological drug through the first clinical trials in patients with metastatic cancer," says Valerie Vanhooren, co-founder and CEO of Ona Therapeutics. Clinical trials are planned for 2023.

Metastasis remains an enormous challenge and the cause of over 90% of all cancer deaths worldwide. There is currently no therapy available that specifically removes metastatic cells. "Our research demonstrates that the survival of metastatic cells is linked to the intake of certain saturated fats and if we block the intake capacity for these fats, we significantly reduce the cell’s metastatic potential" explains Salvador Aznar-Benitah. “In this first year of Ona, we have launched the company and we already have a promising therapeutic candidate,” he adds.

Investors Clara Campàs (Asabys), José Antonio Mesa (Alta Life Sciences) and Joël Jean-Mairet (Ysios Capital) remark that Ona Therapeutics is founded on world-class science out of leading Barcelona research institutes and is developing a disruptive therapy targeting a large unmet medical need: metastasis.

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Photo: Valerie Vanhooren and Salvador Aznar-Benitah of Ona Therapeutics with investors and the management team of IRB Barcelona - © IRB Barcelona