OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was a public American pharmaceutical development company headquartered in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose, California, San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 accor ...

. The company was founded in August 2004 by two

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

investigators, Michael Clarke and Max S. Wicha. , the company had 83 employees. OncoMed's drug discovery work focuses on developing "targeted antibodies against

cancer stem cell Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are cancer cells (found within tumors or hematological cancers) that possess characteristics associated with normal stem cells, specifically the ability to give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sample ...

s". The cancer stem cell technologies on which OncoMed depends are licensed from the University of Michigan where they were developed by the founders of the company. OncoMed went public in 2013 and was listed on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

under the stock symbol OMED. In April 2019 the company was acquired by Mereo BioPharma and delisted from the Nasdaq.

History

Oncomed was founded in 2004. In 2007, Oncomed consolidated its operations located in Mountain View and

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

onto the single headquarters campus at Seaport Centre in Redwood City. One of the buildings on the new campus was the former home of

NeXT NeXT, Inc. (later NeXT Computer, Inc. and NeXT Software, Inc.) was an American technology company headquartered in Redwood City, California that specialized in computer workstations for higher education and business markets, and later develope ...

. In 2012, OncoMed sponsored the USAN nonproprietary name vantictumab for a human

IgG2 Immunoglobulin G (IgG) is a type of antibody. Representing approximately 75% of serum antibodies in humans, IgG is the most common type of antibody found in blood circulation. IgG molecules are created and released by plasma B cells. Each IgG ant ...

anti-

Frizzled Frizzled is a family of atypical G protein-coupled receptor, G protein-coupled receptors that serve as receptors in the Wnt signaling pathway and other signaling pathways. When activated, Frizzled leads to activation of Dishevelled in the cytosol ...

antibody, an anti-cancer therapeutic. In the same year, the company sponsored the USAN name demcizumab for a human IgG2 anti- DLL4 antibody, also an anti-cancer therapeutic. In 2014, OncoMed entered into an anti-

therapeutic development agreement with

Celgene Celgene Corporation, headquartered in Summit, New Jersey, was a pharmaceutical company that produced cancer and immunology drugs. Its primary products were Revlimid (lenalidomide), which is used in the treatment of multiple myeloma (63% of 2018 r ...

encompassing demcizumab and five other biologics from OncoMed's pipeline. , co-founder Max Wicha was the director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and remained a consultant to OncoMed, while co-founder Michael Clarke had taken up a position at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Competitors

In 2013, OncoMed had at least two direct competitors, both public American companies: Stemline Therapeutics and Verastem. By 2014, the list of firms pursuing therapies targeting

s had grown to include Boston Biomedical (a subsidiary of

Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company. The company is focused on oncology, psychiatry, neurology, women's health issues, urological diseases among other areas. Its headquarters are located in Chuo-ku, Osaka. History The original ...

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

Astellas Pharma is a Japanese multinational pharmaceutical company, formed on 1 April 2005 from the merger of and . Astellas is a member of the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFJ) keiretsu. History Early foundations Fujisawa Shoten was started in 1894 ...

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French Multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. The corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 200 ...

(the American subsidiary) and

Pfizer Pfizer Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation headquartered at The Spiral (New York City), The Spiral in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 184 ...

; however, Stemline and Verastem remain the only two competitors solely focused on cancer stem cells. One analyst holds that OncoMed is the best positioned of the three companies focused on the cancer stem cell area.

Pipeline

, Oncomed had seven clinical-stage drugs in development and four discovery-stage investigations; no OncoMed therapies have made it to market yet. Two candidate drugs being co-developed with

Bayer Bayer AG (English: , commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies and biomedical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer' ...

, ipafricept and vantictumab, showed in mid-2014 indications of "causing mild-to-moderate bone-related side effects" among Phase I clinical trial participants, an observation which led the company to halt enrollment and dosing in the trials, and which contributed to a sharp decline in share price. Demcizumab, OMP-305B83, and OMP-131R10 are being developed in collaboration with

. Tarextumab and brontictuzumab are being developed in collaboration with

Vantictumab and ipafricept are being developed in collaboration with

Corporate governance

In 2013, OncoMed's

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(CEO) was Paul Hastings, who took the post in 2006. , the company's head of R&D was John Lewicki, and the director of operations was Chuck Alaimo. While serving as OncoMed's CEO, Hastings was also a member of the

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

for the

California Healthcare Institute CHI-California Healthcare Institute is a private, non-profit public policy research and advocacy organization, representing more than 250 universities, academic research centers, biotechnology, and medical device companies. Founded in 1993, and b ...

and the Bay Area Biosciences Association, as well as chairing the board of the

Biotechnology Industry Organization The Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) is the largest advocacy association in the world representing the biotechnology industry. It was founded in 1993 as the Biotechnology Industry Organization from a merger of the Industrial Biotechno ...

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 2004 establishments in California 2019 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 2004 Companies based in Redwood City, California Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Pharmaceutical companies established in 2004