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Julio Castro, founder; Cristina Balagué, CSO; and Guido Kurz, company CEO (Photo: Oncostellae).
 19.07.2023

The Galician biopharmaceutical Oncostellae opens an office at the Barcelona Science Park

The Galician biopharmaceutical Oncostellae has joined the Barcelona Science Park. The company, founded in 2013, thus takes a step to get closer to many of its investors and collaborators divided between Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela, where the headquarters and laboratories of Oncostellae are located. The company specialises in the development of molecules for oncological and gastrointestinal immunological treatments and has a drug in clinical phase IIa for ulcerative colitis and one in clinical phase I for colorectal cancer.

Oncostellae’s most advanced projects are OST-122, a drug in clinical phase IIa for ulcerative colitis; and OST-499, a drug in clinical phase I for colorectal cancer. The company also has other projects in earlier phases of development.

Oncostellae specialises in the development of molecules for oncological and gastrointestinal immunological treatments for the symptoms of ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and colorectal cancer, a market in constant growth and with clinical needs that are still no covered. The business model of Oncostellae is based on the discovery of new molecules covered by solid intellectual property and global rights, for their development from initial phases to proof of concept in the clinic and obtaining a pharmaceutical licence.

In this sense, the company closed a round of €3.3M a few months ago, of which 1.3 came from the Inveready, XesGalicia, FiTalent and Unirisco funds, and the co-founder Julio Castro, and 2 million through the Capital Cell platform. With this round, Oncostellae envisages completing the clinical trials of its two drugs in the clinical phase to licence at least one of them in 2024, or holding a series A round that enables it to conduct confirmatory studies, continue developing it and finalise a licence in 2026.

“Many of our founders, investors and collaborators are distributed between Santiago and Barcelona. The Barcelona Science Park is also the logical choice for a biopharmaceutical company”, highlights Guido Kurz, CEO of Oncostellae and head of the Barcelona Science Park office.

Oncostellae was founded in 2013 by the doctors Julio Castro and Mabel Loza. The team has a joint experience of more than 25 developed products and has contributed to finalising several licence agreements and acquisitions such as the transfer of the Oryzon licences to Roche in 2014 for €525M and that of Palobiofarma to Novartis in 2015, reached by Dr Castro.

To date, Oncostellae has raised €11.6M in public and private financing and has a team of 10 professionals, as well as the 6 founders and promoters. The network of entities with which it collaborates includes the Vall d’Hebron Hospital and the Hospital of Sant Pau.