CatalYm GmbH

Great news from CatalYm: we have successfully completed an oversubscribed $150 million Series D #financing to advance our lead program #visugromab into randomized Phase 2b clinical trials. This investment will expand visugromab’s late-stage clinical development into earlier lines of treatment including checkpoint naïve and second-line refractory settings in select #SolidTumor indications. We extend a warm welcome to our new investors: Canaan, Bioqube Ventures, Omega Funds, Forbion Growth Fund and Gilde Healthcare Partners. Together with support from our participating existing investors JEITO, Brandon Capital, Novartis Venture Fund and Vesalius Biocapital III  the funding highlights the potential of visugromab to bring benefit to cancer patients and also values the novel approach of neutralizing GDF-15, a key resistance factor to anti-cancer therapies. Visugromab is a humanized monoclonal antibody targeting GDF-15, a key regulator of immune resistance to #cancer therapies. Our lead candidate has shown impressive results in a recent Phase 1/2a data update presented at #ASCO2024. The results demonstrated that the combination of visugromab and the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab achieves deep and durable anti-tumor activity, including complete responses, in patients with anti-PD-(L)1 relapsed/refractory solid tumors. Along with the financing, Colleen Feriod Cuffaro, Partner at Canaan, Jon Edwards, Managing Partner at Bioqube Ventures, and Otello Stampacchia, Managing Director and Founder at Omega Funds, will join our Board of Directors, and Stefan Luzi, PhD, Partner at Gilde joins as an Observer. As we enter this next stage of corporate growth, we remain committed to our mission of breaking immunosuppressive barriers and establishing a new benchmark in cancer care. For more details on the financing, visit: https://lnkd.in/dBfHK4sU

Our VP Preclinical Development & Translation Strategy, Thorsten Ross, is looking forward to his presentation next week at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB)’s Scientific Research Conference focusing on the TGF-β Superfamily. In his talk on July 22, he will outline our latest findings demonstrating that GDF-15, a member of this cytokine family, is a central mediator of #cancer treatment resistance and toxicity in platinum-based #chemotherapy, which is commonly used alongside PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors in the first-line treatment of advanced #NSCLC. Our preclinical findings showcase the potential of our lead antibody candidate visugromab, a first-in-class GDF-15-blocking antibody, to enhance responses and tolerability of standard-of-care chemoimmunotherapy. Find the full agenda details here https://bit.ly/45Z5aD1 and learn more about our novel strategy to counteract resistance and improve #SolidTumor #patient outcomes at www.catalym.com #TGFSRC

This weekend, the Coordinating Investigator of our "GDFATHER" Phase 1/2a trial, Prof. Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, presented compelling new follow-up data at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. The results highlight that visugromab+nivolumab treatment achieves remarkable deep and durable anti-tumoral activity including multiple complete responses in late- to last-line patients with metastatic non-sq NSCLC, Urothelial cancer and HCC. Currently, median duration of response is surpassing 15 months for NSCLC and 14 months for UC cohorts, with 77% of all responses still ongoing. Remarkably, 53% of patients experiencing a response on study achieved a RECIST 1.1 response level not reached with their initial checkpoint inhibitor treatment in 1L/2L. 75% of the complete responses in non-sq NSCLC and UC had not achieved a CR on any prior systemic treatment before, all ongoing as of now. Patients that entered the trial had to be truly anti-PD-1/PD-L1 relapsed/refractory as per strict criteria. Given the clinical and preclinical data to date, we are convinced that targeting GDF-15 has the potential to break a critical therapeutic resistance pathway and establish a new benchmark in checkpoint inhibition potentiation. We will now take this promising therapeutic concept into 1L and 2L treatment of multiple solid tumor types to maximize potential benefit to patients in need suffering from metastatic solid tumors with no curative option so far. Read more about the full data, the main differentiators of this approach, future development plans, and the potential beneficial impact for patients here: https://lnkd.in/dYwxKq7d

Are you attending the 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting? On Sunday, June 2, at 11:30 AM CDT in the "Developmental Therapeutics-Immunotherapy" session, our Coordinating Investigator, Prof. Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, will present positive new Phase 2a follow-up data on our GDF-15 neutralizing antibody, visugromab, in advanced #NSCLC, urothelial, and hepatocellular #cancer. Find out more about our upcoming presentation: https://bit.ly/4bPKtei & learn more about how we aim to address GDF-15-mediated #TherapyResistance, one of the major hurdles in cancer treatment, at www.catalym.com #cancerresearch #ASCO2024 #ASCO

Our team just returned from the great annual Investigator meeting #IM2024 in Malaga/Spain, where we reviewed the latest data of our #GDFATHER_1_2a and the #GDFATHER_NEO trials. We experienced an exciting meeting and saw great enthusiam for the #visugromab program among our Investigators and the clinical trial staff our our Investigational sites. The meeting circled around latest data updates (with a growing number of complete responses in late to last-line solid tumor patients that in majority had not experienced a CR under any prior treatment), GCP and drug safety trainings and clinical operations insights reg data cleaning and managing 52.000+ eCRF pages. Phantastic educational sessions by Patrizia Giannatempo/Milan (thanks!!!) and Martin Schuler/Essen (thanks!!!) on recent advances in UC and NSCLC treatment rounded up the meeting well. Thanks to all participants for the great meeting and their dedication to bring a novel immunotherapy concept to cancer patients in need! More to come soon with our oral presentation at #ASCO2024 in Chicago by Ignacio Melero on Sunday, June 2nd! See here: https://lnkd.in/de6Wj9si #visugromab #GDF15 #GDFATHER #potentiating_Checkpoint_inhibitor_activity #IM2024 #operationalexcellence #ASCO2024 #IO_therapy #Catalym

Are you attending the Immuno by Oxford Global Conference (Immuno 2024) starting on Thursday in #London? Don’t miss out on the presentation by our VP Preclinical Research & Translation Strategy, Thorsten Ross , on April 26. He will speak about the role of GDF-15 in #cancer therapy resistance and how blocking GDF-15 can boost current standard-of-care and emerging treatments & improve #patient outcomes. The talk includes recent insights about our lead candidate visugromab, a first-in-class GDF-15-neutralizing antibody, currently being evaluated in Phase 2 clinical trials.   Download the full conference program here https://bit.ly/3UhM5I6 & learn more about our novel approach to tackling cancer resistance at www.catalym.com   #OGImmuno #Immuno24

We're proud to share an article by Drug Target Review featuring our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Christine Schuberth-Wagner .  With over a decade of experience in the field of immuno-oncology and drug discovery, Christine’s achievements are a testament to the impactful contributions of #WomenInSTEM and we are thankful to have her on our team.   Learn about Christine's professional journey and her thoughts on both challenges and opportunities unique to women in STEM in the article below.   #WomenInScience #Immunooncology #DrugDiscovery #Biotech

Listen in to our CSO Christine Schuberth-Wagner together with Roy Baynes

A very warm welcome to Silke Brandt-Schmidt who joins the CatalYm team as SVP of Product Development! Silke brings a wealth of late-stage IO product development expertise to CatalYm. She has a track record in orchestrating cross-functional teams across a diverse range of research and development programs, with a particular focus on Oncology and Immuno-Oncology. Silke has led early and late-phase immunotherapy programs at Affimed and prior to that at Merck KGaA. At CatalYm Silke will be working in partnership with internal and external colleagues to further refine the development strategy and provide expert leadership and direction in its implementation to ensure the successful progression of the company’s lead product through late-stage development. #CatalYm #visugromab #GDF-15 #oncology #2024

If you’re participating in the 10th Annual #IO360 Summit, join us for our upcoming presentation, where our CSO, Christine Schuberth-Wagner, will highlight CatalYm’s pioneering approach to countering GDF-15-mediated immune resistance, a significant hurdle in treating advanced-stage cancer patients.   Our presentation will focus on the latest scientific and clinical advancements for our anti-GDF-15 monoclonal antibody, visugromab. To date, visugromab has demonstrated remarkable anti-tumor activity, durability of response and an excellent safety profile in a Phase 1/2a study in anti PD-1/-L1 relapsed/refractory last-line cancer patients in combination with nivolumab. The data we’ll showcase underscore visugromab's potential as a key component in a wide array of future cancer treatment protocols.   For more details about our presentations, visit: https://lnkd.in/d5WdA4xj