Venture Capital

Proteostasis Rakes in $45M in Series A

Um. Wow. $45M?

Proteostasis announced that it has secured $45 million in a Series A financing to develop drugs as novel therapies to treat multiple genetic and degenerative disorders associated with protein homeostasis deficiencies. Investors included HealthCare Ventures, Fidelity Biosciences, New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Option Fund and Genzyme Ventures.

On paper, this company smells like another Sirtris.  Something their private equity backers will no doubt be thrilled to have mentioned. They have rockstar scientists, an experienced CEO and an incredible ability to obfuscate facts and use made up words in press releases.

I was going to highlight a few annoyances I have with the language in the press release but there were to many.  So, I’ve decided to annotate the first part of the press release (my comments are in bold and in brackets).  Enjoy.

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. (PTI) today announced that it has secured $45 million in a Series A financing to develop Proteostasis Regulator™ drugs [Proteostasis? Really? Is allosterically modulating a made-up/fictionally-named, target more lenient path from a regulatory standpoint?] as novel therapies to treat multiple genetic and degenerative disorders associated with protein homeostasis deficiencies[e.g., pretty much every known disease. Way to narrow it down guys.] Investors included HealthCare Ventures, Fidelity Biosciences, New Enterprise Associates, Novartis Option Fund and Genzyme Ventures.

“Proteostasis Therapeutics brings together innovative discoveries, leading scientists and a foundation of intellectual property related to the Proteostasis Network™ [wow... two trademarks in three sentences? That's gotta be some sort of Series A funding record.] and Proteostasis Regulators arising from Northwestern University, the Salk Institute and the Scripps Research Institute,” commented David D. Pendergast, Ph.D., CEO of PTI. “Proteostasis Therapeutics is uniquely positioned to commercialize this fundamentally new way of thinking about therapeutic intervention for a broad range of diseases.”

“The Company has established a map of the Proteostasis Network [Developed a map of a made up network. Awesome. Great job.], leading to breakthroughs in understanding how stress on the network, including aging [cough*sirtris*cough], environmental and cellular stresses, can lead to the onset of multiple serious diseases,” stated Andrew Dillin, Ph.D., co-founder of PTI. “With this new knowledge, PTI has identified unique targets as well as small molecules that offer the promise of restoring the balance of the network [Interesting choice of words. More on this later] while preventing the toxicity of damaged proteins associated with disease,” continued Richard Morimoto, Ph.D., co-founder of PTI.

“Proteostasis Therapeutics has discovered a new frontier in medicine with the identification of several classes of small molecule Proteostasis Regulators that can precisely rebalance the capacity of the Proteostasis Network [Here it is again from a different team member. "Rebalance the network"... I'm pretty sure I heard Billy Mays say this last night about a diet/cleansing pill.],” commented Jeffery W. Kelly, Ph.D., co-founder of PTI. “These cell-permeable small molecules exhibit the capacity to ameliorate multiple genetic, degenerative and metabolic diseases, spanning nearly all the classical therapeutic areas.” [A silver bullet? Really? You expect me to believe you have a small molecule drug capable to restoring everything wrong in the "proteostasis network" for basically every disease. That is fucking impressive. Can the bar get any higher than that?]

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Ok. Few more things and the rant will be over.

On the scientific side, I just wanted to mention that the founders are all C. Elegans guys. I’m going to make the assumption that their “network map” and their screening platform is C. Elegans centric. Could be wrong, but if I’m right I’m not sure how well it correlates to primates. My naive guess is that mammals and primates have far more complicated (and redundant) systems.

Finally, the conclusion.

You might think I’d come down negatively on this one. If you’ve read this far, I think it would be easy to see why but my opinion might shock you. I’m a fan.

Do I bet this company will produce a drug? No.
Do I bet this company will reach phase 2? No, and if so, my guess is that it will be some wishy washy endpoint. (e.g., running a 20 patient T2 Diabetes trial without HbA1c as an endpoint.)

Why am I a fan? If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Alnylam, Sirna, Sirtris… the list goes on and on… all companies I didn’t believe had a useful technology or a platform worth a damn, have made their initial investors a crap-ton of money. Not one of the companies has proven anything (by way of an approved or imminently approved product) and yet their valuations are/were astronomically high.

So, you’re a fan but do you believe in Proteostasis? No.

Do I believe investors are going to make a killing after some preclinical efficacy studies get big pharma all horned up over the illusion of novelty and the promise of filled pipelines? Yep.

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• June 23, 2008 -- Immune Design Nets $18M in Series A (0)
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• November 1, 2008 -- Fidelity Biosciences Takes Over EnVivo Pharmaceuticals (0)
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