Oxford Finance, a specialty finance firm that provides senior debt to life sciences and healthcare services companies worldwide, closed a $50 million senior secured term loan with OncoResponse, a clinical-stage biotech company advancing immunotherapies derived from the immune systems of elite cancer responders.

Proceeds from the transaction will be used for general working capital and to support clinical testing of the company’s lead drug, OR2805, which is currently in clinical development.

“Our priority is to advance the clinical studies of our lead drug candidate, OR2805, across multiple tumor types. We will also use this capital to support our drug pipeline and leverage our proprietary platform to discover important new treatments for cancer. We are pleased to have this support from Oxford, in addition to that from our strong investor syndicate, to support these efforts,” Chris Russell, CFO of OncoResponse, said.

OncoResponse is leveraging its proprietary human antibody platform to discover novel targets and identify fully human monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics for the treatment of cancer patients. The platform allows for the rapid screening of tens of thousands of antibodies made by the human immune system to identify immuno-modulatory antibodies.

“OncoResponse is led by an experienced management team that has a track record of successfully developing platform technologies and clinical-stage therapeutics,” Christopher A. Herr, senior managing director at Oxford, said. “Oxford is pleased to be a capital provider to OncoResponse and back its unique and compelling pipeline focused on reversing and relieving immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment leading to better responses and more cures for cancer patients worldwide.”