Cambridge startup Yumanity Therapeutics just closed out an impressive $45 million Series A – meant to fuel its yeast-based drug discovery platform through preclinical development.
The investor syndicate is an interesting blend of strategics and institutional firms. The round was led by Fidelity, with participation from Redmile Group, Alexandria Venture Investments, Biogen, Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures and Dolby Family Ventures.
The company is developing drugs geared at neurodegenerative diseases caused by protein misfolding – including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and ALS. The improper folding of proteins is, after all, considered one of the key causes of neurodegeneration.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
This funding should take Yumanity all the way through the preclinical period, bringing it just short of first-in-man trials. Coles said that it’s too early to wager when the company might be ready to hit clinical trials – it’s focusing first and foremost on basic science research.
“We let the science lead us – but we have to be patient,” Coles said. “This way, the hits turn into leads. Leads turn into compounds – and timelines emerge.”
The company’s using engineered yeast to create functional replicas of the cellular state of various diseases. Yeast is inexpensive, making it a cost effective approach to test a wide library of small molecules that could potentially be used to right these diseases. If a compound appears to have an effect on the yeast’s misfolded proteins, the company will test it in stem cell-derived neurons from patients with neurodegenerative disease. Xconomy recently wrote a comprehensive piece detailing Yumanity’s technology – it’s worth a read.
One of the seminal lessons from the data to date of Biogen’s Alzheimer drug aducanumab, Coles said, is the importance of early intervention in patients with neurodegenerative disease. Yumanity hopes to develop drugs that can be used at earlier stages – plumbing patient DNA to predict which genomic patterns go along with expressions of disease. The idea then, he said, is to then tailor therapies based on these genomic readouts.
