Eli Lilly-partnered Lycia Therapeutics will use its Series C financing to continue developing its internal pipeline of protein-degrading drugs. The startup is working to reach the clinic with drugs for autoimmune and inflammatory disorders.
Versant Ventures-backed Firefly Bio is part of a growing group of companies developing degrader antibody conjugates, or DACs. These targeted cancer therapies combine properties of antibody drug conjugates and protein degraders in order to overcome limitations of both types of therapies.
As technology advances, AI-powered tools will increasingly reduce the administrative burdens on healthcare providers.
Nexo Therapeutics is developing cancer drugs that expand the scope of amino acids addressable by covalent chemistry. Versant Ventures founded the startup and led its Series A financing.
Versant Ventures-backed Belharra Therapeutics has launched with $130 million in funding and a partnership with Roche subsidiary Genentech. The startup’s technology analyzes proteins in the context of the entire cell, enabling it to discover molecules that bind to targets previously deemed undruggable.
Nested Therapeutics uses computational techniques to map mutations and protein structures, identifying previously unseen places where a cancer drug can bind. The Versant Ventures-founded startup is now out of stealth with two programs on the path to the clinic.
Vector BioPharma has launched from the biotech startup incubator of Versant Ventures, which is backing the company with a $30 million Series A financing. Vector is developing virus-like particles with the capability to deliver large payloads of genetic medicines to a wide range of tissues.
Closing cancer health equity gaps require medical breakthroughs made possible by new funding approaches.
Versant Ventures has launched Cimeio Therapeutics, a biotech startup with technology that can shield transplanted stem cells or cell therapies. Shielding these cells enables them to be dosed alongside an immunotherapy—an approach that is not currently done because the therapies don’t discriminate between diseased cells and transplanted ones.
Biotech startup Tentarix Biotherapeutics has come out of stealth with $50 million and technology that develops biologic drugs endowed with multiple functions. The company aims to develop new multispecific biologic drugs for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Stablix Therapeutics is developing technology that uses small molecules to stabilize a protein, keeping it from going to a cell’s built-in disposal system. The startup now has $63 million in funding to further invest in the technology and advance its first molecules toward the clinic.
The Boston-based company plans to develop small-molecule therapeutics that go after historically "undruggable" targets using a process known as protein degradation.
Executives from Imagine360, Verily, BrightInsight, Lantern, and Rhapsody shared their approaches to reducing healthcare costs and facilitating digital transformation.
Just a little over a year after it emerged from stealth mode, the company - which recently initiated a clinical trial of a drug targeting allosteric mutations in solid tumors - has filed to go public.
The raise comes a month after the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm's launch with a $20 million Series A round. Black Diamond is developing drugs that target allosteric mutant oncogenes, which it describes as an unexplored space.
The firm said both funds exceeded their initial targets. Versant plans to use Fund VII for at least 20 global biotech companies, while Versant Voyageurs I will be used to fund five to eight startups with Canadian operations.
The company plans to file an IND for its allosteric HER2-targeting drug at the end of 2019, followed by one for its second product candidate in the first half of 2020.
Venture capital firm Versant Ventures launched the company with a $20 million Series A funding round last year.