Peptomyc is awarded €5 million from the Horizon Europe EIC Accelerator Program to conduct a Phase 1b clinical trial with OMO-103 in patients and scale up its manufacturing process

The biotech company Peptomyc S.L. has announced that it has been awarded €5 million blended financing from the Horizon Europe, European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator Program. The grant will fund a phase 1b clinical trial in first-line metastatic pancreatic cancer patients to investigate OMO-103 in combination with standard-of-care chemotherapy.

The EIC Accelerator program is a highly competitive program of the European Commission that provides small or medium size enterprise (SME) awardees with funding, coaching and business acceleration services. It is an extremely competitive call, where only 2.5-5% of the applications submitted are usually funded.

The program offers both a grant and equity investment managed by the European Investment Bank. With this model, Peptomyc received €2.5M as a grant, and €2.5M as equity.

Peptomyc’s objectives for this project are to conduct a phase 1b multicenter single-arm clinical trial to investigate OMO-103 in combination with the standard of care regimen Gemcitabine and Nab-Paclitaxel in first line metastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients, in 4 leading hospital centers in Spain. The company will also advance the development of a drug companion diagnostic, scale up the manufacturing process and develop its drugs’ pipeline.

Laura Soucek, co-founder and CEO of Peptomyc said “We are very grateful to the EIC for this support: this endorsement is a testament to our innovative strides to develop groundbreaking cancer therapies. With this backing, we can accelerate our research and bring new hope in the fight against cancer.”

Marie-Eve Beaulieu, co-founder and CSO of Peptomyc said: “Our team is incredibly grateful for this opportunity to further our mission, and we are committed to advancing our pioneering work to bring better solutions to patients.”

Jörg Klumbis, CFO of Peptomyc, added: “This grant is the result of the excellent work performed by Peptomyc’s team. It reinforces our financial stability and capability to drive our innovative cancer therapies forward.”

About Peptomyc

Peptomyc (www.peptomyc.com) is a spin-off from VHIO – the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology – and ICREA – the Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies -, founded in December 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. The company is focused on the development of innovative cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) targeting the Myc oncoprotein for cancer treatment and based on Dr. Soucek’s scientific research in Omomyc (the best direct Myc inhibitor known to date) over the last twenty years. It is the first company to have successfully completed a Phase 1 clinical trial with a direct MYC inhibitor.