Tolero Pharmaceuticals, a Salt Lake City, Utah drug developer, has set its sights on ramping up the commercialization and development efforts of its acute myeloid leukemia treatment, which will enter Phase 3 trial sometime next year.
The company’s fresh off of closing a Series B round of $14.2 million, though the initial aim for the company was to raise $35 million. Not sure whether the company still needs that extra $21 million… In any case, the round was led by Fred Alger Management Inc., though other previous investors also participated.
The company’s lead drug, alvocidib, received orphan drug designation for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia – a disease that has a poor prognosis for patients, and certainly rather limited treatment options.
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Tolero says its platform “targets diseases from a platform-centric approach,” because its drug discovery and development considers cancer and other diseases as “driven by accumulation of abnormalities in cell function over time.” So instead of focusing on single genetic alterations like point mutations or deletions, it focuses on finding “specific diseases and genetic backgrounds” where pathway inhibitors exhibit the most efficacy.
“The concept is at the center of the personalized medicine movement,” the company said, “where targeted therapies can be tailored for individual patients with a defined genetic or molecule subtype of the disease.”
Alvocidib is Tolero’s only drug being tested in the clinic, but it has three other programs in IND-enabling preclinical trial – an AXL inhibitor for lung cancer and acute myeloid leukemia, a BMP signaling drug to treat anemia stemming from chronic disease, and a PIM inhibitor for psoriasis, prostate cancer and again acute myeloid leukemia.
