Mar 3, 2021 2:00pm A team led by scientists at China Medical University successfully targeted a section of the IL-17RB protein to shrink tumors in mice with pancreatic cancer. (By Manu5 (http://www.scientificanimations.com/wiki-images/) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Pancreatic cancer is highly aggressive, and it s typically diagnosed late, resulting in few effective treatment options. Researchers led by China Medical University have found a possible way to inhibit this deadly tumor by targeting a molecular loophole in a cancer-promoting protein.
The protein is interleukin-17 receptor B (IL-17RB), and the team discovered that a small piece of synthetic peptide placed on the flexible loop region of the protein could impede its pro-cancer signaling. In a mouse model of pancreatic cancer, the peptide reduced tumor metastases and extended survival.
(Getty Images)
It’s been a relatively quiet few years for FogPharma, at least publicly, but now the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech is revealing a major funding round.
The series C has been pumped up to $107 million from a who’s who of venture capitalists. The round was led by venBio Partners with help from new investors Cormorant Asset Management, Farallon Capital Management, Invus, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc., HBM Healthcare Investments, Casdin Capital and PagsGroup.
Existing investors also chipped in, including Google’s GV, 6 Dimensions Capital, Deerfield Management and Blue Pool Capital.
What has them opening their checkbooks? FogPharma’s platform direct beta-catenin antagonist and universal druggability platform. Out of this has come its lead program, a beta-catenin antagonist designed to treat previously undruggable cancers.
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The Tenaya Therapeutics team (Tenaya Therapeutics)
With another $106 million in the bank, heart-focused Tenaya Therapeutics is ready to talk targets. The series C funding will propel several preclinical programs toward the clinic, including a gene therapy for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), as well as set up a site in the Bay Area to manufacture vectors to deliver its treatments.
The South San Francisco-based biotech is attacking heart disease through three different angles: gene therapy, cellular regeneration and precision medicine. It’s taking this multipronged approach so it can solve the different types of problems that can lead to heart disease and heart failure.
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