Melbourne, Australia, October 27, 2021

oNKo-innate, a leading innate immune drug discovery and development company is honoured to receive the Australian Emerging Company of the Year Award at the prestigious AusBiotech and Johnson & Johnson Innovation Industry Excellence Awards held during the 2021 AusBiotech National Conference. The awards recognise companies and individuals making an impact within Australia’s biotechnology, medical technology and healthcare sectors.

With a focus on how the immune system might be better harnessed to treat cancer, oNKo-innate has developed unique full-stack biology and modality platforms capable of discovering, validating and prosecuting new and emerging therapeutic targets. These capabilities have received international recognition through recent partnerships with Gilead Sciences and Kite Pharma, together dedicated to enhancing the anti-tumour function of specialised white blood cells called natural killer (NK) cells. While also developing portfolio of internal assets, oNKo is setting the pace for local sustainable biotechnology and accelerating the creation of next-generation cancer immunotherapies.

As a young and dynamic start-up, oNKo-innate takes pride in challenging the status quo of how discoveries are translated into meaningful therapies. “We hope our biology-driven discovery and commercial vision add to the many start-up models considered by other local biotech founders” said Dr. Jai Rautela, CEO and co-founder of oNKo-innate. “As for oNKo, we’re delighted and very grateful to receive this award so early in our journey. It is truly a testament to our remarkable team”.

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