Forrest, Wylie and Reed Jobs back Skopos Bio's $12m seed round

Melbourne oncology start-up Skopos Bio has raised $12 million in seed funding from three venture capital firms led by Andrew Forrest's Tenmile, John Wylie's Tin Alley Ventures and Reed Jobs' Yosemite.

The company, founded by three scientists from Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, will use the capital to advance its nuclear-science-backed therapy for hard-to-treat cancers into human trials.

"The team is one of the best in the world at taking new and experimental therapies and testing them in human settings," said Tin Alley's managing partner Andrew McLean. "We think that in relatively short order we can show that this technology works."

Skopos co-founder and nuclear physician-scientist Michael Hofman spearheaded Peter Mac's landmark proPSMA clinical trial, which pioneered a now standardised prostate cancer treatment that Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis commercialised. Hofman said the new treatment would target a broader range of hard-to-treat cancers, including ovarian, breast and blood cancers.

"We don't just want a paper in a scientific journal," said Hofman. "We want to create a treatment that becomes available globally to really spread Australian science – and the way to do that is through commercialisation."

The therapy works by injecting radioactive molecules into the bloodstream, where they identify cancer cells and tumours. Once the molecules lock onto a target on a cancer cell, they deliver radiation directly, largely sparing healthy tissue. That allows a more potent dose to reach the tumour while limiting the side effects of conventional radiation treatment, which cannot always distinguish cancer cells from healthy tissue.

Peter Mac, ranked 14th globally, is Australia's leading specialised cancer hospital. Its operations are vertically integrated: half the hospital's floor space houses cancer research laboratories and the other half delivers clinical care. Hofman's fellow co-founders are Peter Mac radiochemist Mohammad Haskali and cancer biologist Luc Furic.

"It is really unique globally to have all of this in the one building and to have the discipline, the expertise in these different domains, all working together," said Hofman. "We can do this with a speed and cost advantage that isn't really possible elsewhere."

The backdrop is a healthcare sector worth about $270 billion annually in Australia – the country's fastest growing, driven by an ageing population and rising chronic disease rates. Technological developments, particularly in artificial intelligence, are cutting research times and development costs for new drugs. That has triggered a flurry of dealmaking among global pharma giants Novartis, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly, which are snapping up smaller firms.

The three backers bring distinct mandates. Tenmile, backed by Forrest's $30 billion private investment vehicle Tattarang, invests exclusively in healthcare and biotech start-ups. Jobs founded Yosemite after the death of his father, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, from cancer; the firm focuses on oncology. Tin Alley, formed as a joint venture between Wylie's Tanarra Capital and the University of Melbourne in 2022, also invests in frontier technologies such as AI and quantum computing, though roughly two-thirds of its investments to date have been in medicine.

McLean called it a significant milestone that Yosemite, which has more than $US1 billion ($1.42 billion) in funds under management, chose Australia as an investment destination.

"In our field, as in many fields, you get the sense that the United States is the most exciting place that things happen, so it's quite a strong signal when a group decides to invest outside the US," he said. "It's just a testament to the strength of the science that's rolling into this company."

With the seed round closed, Skopos now faces the sharper test: proving in human trials that the technology that convinced three heavyweight backers — including a $US1 billion US fund — can become a globally commercialised treatment.