The clinical-stage biotechnology company will advance its Phase 2 clinical trials for advanced ovarian cancer.
Oxford-headquartered Theolytics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing oncolytic immunotherapies, has been awarded €8 million (£6.9 million) in non-dilutive grant funding from Horizon Europe 2025, the European Union’s research and innovation funding programme.
The grant is still pending final negotiation.
The grant to Theolytics will provide financial support to advance the company’s Phase 2 OCTOPOD-IV clinical trial evaluating THEO-260, its novel therapeutic candidate designed to address unmet needs in patients with advanced ovarian cancer.
Positioned to tackle the complex, immunosuppressed nature of advanced solid tumours, THEO-260 is an oncolytic immunotherapy designed for effective killing of both cancer cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), while inducing immune activation. Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer represents a prototype of a broader category of stroma-rich solid tumours for which THEO-260 is being developed.
Differentiated mechanism of action
OCTOPOD-IV is a first-in-human, multi-centre trial to assess safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of THEO-260 in patients with high-grade serous ovarian or endometrioid cancer. In addition, the trial is designed to determine the recommended Phase 2 dose and demonstrate THEO-260’s differentiated cancer/cancer-associated fibroblast-lytic mechanism of action in patients through comprehensive biomarker analysis.
“The Horizon Europe award validates both the scientific rationale behind our THEO-260 programme and the huge potential of its novel oncolytic and CAF-lytic mechanism to address a significant unmet need in stroma-rich solid cancers,” said Theolytics co-founder and chief scientific officer Margaret Duffy.
“By integrating advanced translational analyses into our clinical trial design, we will clinically demonstrate the differentiated mechanism of action of THEO-260 and provide key data to advance this programme and deliver true impact for cancer patients,” she continued,
The grant application was coordinated with several partners, expert clinical and translational centres involved in the OCTOPOD-IV study and includes the University of Navarra, Catalan Institute of Oncology in Spain; the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, and The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London, UK. Two-thirds of the funds will be received directly by Theolytics to advance the OCTOPOD-IV Phase 2a expansion trial, and the other third will be deployed directly to the partners in support of their work on the trial.
Horizon Europe 2025 supports high-impact clinical-stage projects aimed at improving patient outcomes and strengthening Europe’s scientific leadership.
