Irazú Oncology is advancing a new class of cancer immunotherapies designed to activate both innate and adaptive immunity. The company’s lead program, IRZ-03, is a first-in-class multimodal OMV immunotherapy in development for checkpoint inhibitor–refractory solid tumors.
Company Overview
Founded in 2022, Irazu Oncology is developing a new generation of cancer immunotherapies built on its proprietary bacterial outer membrane vesicle (OMV) platform. The technology allows for the creation of fully customized, self-adjuvanted, mono/multivalent therapeutic vaccines – each particle carrying both tumor antigens and the immune activating signals needed to mount a balanced and effective anti-tumor response. Anchored in more than 15 years of foundational research and paired with scalable bacterial fermentation, the platform is designed to make effective cancer immunotherapy both more powerful and more accessible. IRZ-03, the company’s lead program, is the first product of a platform built to generate many.
Mission: Off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy, built on biology nature already perfected.
We turn bacterial outer membrane vesicles into potent, scalable vaccines that direct the immune system to attack tumors.
OMV Platform
Outer membrane vesicles are naturally immunogenic — the immune system is evolutionarily primed to detect them. Our platform is designed to harness this intrinsic signal, displaying tumor-associated antigens on the OMV surface to generate coordinated, antigen-specific anti-tumor responses. Because the vesicles are produced from a bacterial host rather than built one patient at a time, the platform is engineered for scalable, reproducible manufacturing — an off-the-shelf approach intended to reach patients without the cost and delay of personalized production.
The company’s lead program, IRZ-03, is a first-in-class multimodal OMV immunotherapy targeting CEA, MUC1, and PD-L1, in development for checkpoint inhibitor–refractory solid tumors including colorectal, non-small cell lung, gastric, pancreatic, and head and neck cancers. Irazú has achieved FDA Pre-IND alignment on key regulatory elements and is advancing IND-enabling studies in preparation for a first-in-human clinical trial.