NATICK, Mass.– PIC Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing life-changing medicines for patients with cancer, today announced the closing of a $35 million Series A financing led by OrbiMed. Other new investors participating in this financing include Lumira Ventures and Harrington Discovery Institute. The company’s existing investors including Advent Life Sciences and Belinda Termeer also participated and provided initial seed financing instrumental to meeting key milestones.
Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance the company’s development-stage small molecule drug, an allosteric protein translation modulator targeting eIF4E, into first-in-man, first-in-mechanism clinical studies in advanced metastatic breast cancer. The proceeds will also support expansion of the company’s pipeline of emerging oncology indications.
PIC Therapeutics is targeting a fundamental mechanism at the convergence of many oncogenic signaling pathways that results in apoptotic cancer cell death while sparing normal cells. Allosteric modulation of eIF4E offers many advantages to previous approaches, and simultaneously addresses multiple drivers of pharmacology, allowing the company’s small molecules to truly drive differential CAP dependent translation in target cells.
Preclinical studies show that PIC compounds modulate, but do not block, protein translation. PIC compounds mechanistically modulate cellular proteomes, leading to rapid and significant reduction in cancer cell viability via apoptosis. Inducing apoptosis rather than senescence is an important distinguishing feature of PIC’s approach to this elusive target.
“This financing from a committed and distinguished investor syndicate, which includes new and existing investors, underscores the progress we’ve made to advance our lead program toward our goal of cancer therapies that broadly address cancer-driving oncogenes via a fundamental mechanism in protein translational modulation,” said Katherine Bowdish, Chief Executive Officer of PIC Therapeutics. “We are well positioned to build a leading mechanistic-based oncology company that brings promising science to cancer patients with drug resistant tumors.”
“We are excited to partner with PIC Therapeutics as they build a differentiated targeted oncology company, and we look forward to supporting the team as they work towards achieving key development goals over the coming years,” said Tal Zaks, Partner of OrbiMed Advisors.
“Founded on the scientific work of Dr. Gerhard Wagner at Harvard University and Dr. Nahum Sonenberg at McGill University, PIC Therapeutics has developed a truly novel approach for eIF4E, an important target in resistant cancers. We are pleased to work with the PIC team and its investors to enable new frontiers in targeted mechanistic oncology with the potential to transform the treatment paradigm for cancer patients,” commented Gerry Brunk, Managing Director of Lumira Ventures.
