Kolltan Pharmaceuticals, which in my opinion sounds like the name of a cartoon villian, has raised over $35 million in its Series A preferred stock financing. Kolltan is an oncology therapeutics company applying expertise in novel receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) targets based on recent discoveries in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph Schlessinger, William H. Prusoff Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine. The proceeds of the Series A financing will be used to advance Kolltan’s therapeutic development pipeline.
Dr. Schlessinger is a bit of a rockstar scientist. He’s Co-Founder, Chief Scientist and a Director of Kolltan. He is also Co-Founder and Chairman of Plexxikon and in 1991 co-founded SUGEN which developed an RTK oncology therapeutic now marketed by Pfizer. In addition, he’s won numerous awards and is a member of the national academy of sciences.
Kolltan’s strategy is to focus initially on the development of therapeutic MAbs, and later, on the discovery and development of synthetic small molecule therapeutics, to which Kolltan’s technology is equally applicable.
The current generation of cancer drugs — including Gleevec, Sutent, and Nexavar — which act by interfering with the tyrosine kinase activity of oncogenic tyrosine kinases, have been remarkably successful in the treatment of a variety of cancers. Unfortunately, it is now clear that a preponderance of patients administered these drugs eventually develop resistance in later dosing cycles, and ultimately fail therapy. Detailed molecular studies have shown that drug resistance is caused by mutations in the tyrosine kinase domain that permit ATP binding, ATP hydrolysis and receptor autophosphorylation but prevent drug binding to the ATP binding pocket. Kolltan expects that the mechanism of action of its drugs will be unaffected by such resistance.
Kolltan Pharmaceuticals Raises over $35 Million in Series A Financing
(Via Business Wire Health News.)
Theoretically Related Posts
Eben is a highly caffeinated business development associate at a small, cash sensitive pharmaceutical company somewhere in Massachusetts. He enjoys cliche-less banter, compartmentalization, non-equilibrium thermodynamics and NPV analysis. Agree or disagree with what he's posted? He encourages comments.
If one were so inclined, one could follow him at any of these fine web 2.0 establishments:
Feel free to leave a comment below. Eben loves comments. You may also subscribe to comments through this RSS Comments feed or trackback here.
Add New Comment
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks
(Trackback URL)