Redona Therapeutics, Inc.

Kleem Chaudhary, Ph.D. appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Chaudhary brings more than 20 years of leadership experience across multiple pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies LEXINGTON, Mass., March 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hyku Biosciences, Inc. (Hyku), a covalent precision medicine company, today announced the appointment of Kleem Chaudhary, Ph.D. as President and Chief Executive Officer, succeeding co-founder and acting CEO Milind Deshpande, Ph.D. who will now serve as an advisor to the company. Dr Chaudhary will also serve as a member of the Board of Directors of Hyku. “I am pleased to welcome Kleem to Hyku” said Dr. Deshpande, “With his extensive experience leading organizations and completing significant transactions across biotech and big pharma, I am confident that Hyku will flourish under Kleem’s leadership.” Dr. Chaudhary brings diverse and successful experiences from his previous roles at multiple pharma and biotech companies. Most recently, he was Chief Operating and Business Officer at Redona Therapeutics. Prior to Redona, he was Chief Business Officer at Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, where he was instrumental in the company’s Series C financing, IPO and led the sale of the company to Regeneron. Previously, he held business development roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis, Takeda, and Biogen after starting his industry career as a medicinal chemist at Gilead Sciences. Dr. Chaudhary holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Winnipeg. “I am very impressed with the highly differentiated and innovative chemoproteomics-driven drug discovery platform at Hyku that, together with the extremely talented team, has already enabled an exciting pipeline of potential first-in-class and best-in-class medicines. Hyku’s platform has the depth and breadth to open new opportunities broadly across therapeutic areas” said Dr. Chaudhary “I am delighted to welcome Kleem as the new CEO of Hyku Biosciences,” said Laura Tadvalkar, Ph.D., Managing Director at RA Capital Management and Hyku Board member. “Kleem’s background as a scientist and his extensive business experience across pharma and biotech, position him to be a great partner to the board and an excellent leader for Hyku as we advance the exciting pipeline and continue to expand and deploy our differentiated platform.” “Hyku’s proprietary chemoproteomics platform and precision covalent medicine pipeline have the potential to accelerate the development of important new medicines that address major clinical unmet needs,” said Matthias van Woensel, Ph.D., Partner at Droia Ventures and Hyku Board member. “We are excited to have Kleem join Hyku and I look forward to working with him to advance the exciting science at Hyku.” About Hyku Biosciences Hyku Biosciences is a biotechnology company, based in the greater Boston area, building the leading covalent medicines discovery platform to inhibit disease targets which are challenging to address with conventional approaches. Hyku’s drug discovery engine is based on its proprietary platform technologies, which identifies binding pockets based on histidines, tyrosines, lysines and other non-cysteine amino acids and enables rational drug design for therapeutic development. The platform pioneered by Hyku has the potential to fundamentally expand the scope of small molecule drug discovery, greatly increase druggability across many target classes, and bring significant therapeutic benefits to patients via novel medicines. For more information, please visit http://www.hykubiosciences.com/ Contact IR@Hykubio.com

Faro Health, which offers software to help researchers design clinical trials, announced last week it had raised $20 million in a round led by General Catalyst. Participants in the raise include returning investors Section 32, Polaris Partners, Zetta Ventures, and Northpond Ventures. The startup previously scooped up $15 million in Series A funding. "Faro has developed software that allows rapid evaluation of clinical study costs, accessibility to patients and ease of study conduct," Elena Viboch, partner at General Catalyst, said in a statement. As part of the investment, Viboch will join Faro's board of directors. "By helping study teams answer complex questions, Faro's solution aims to improve lives by bringing more efficiency to clinical trials." Marker Learning, which provides virtual assessments and support for learning disabilities, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Others participating in the round include the venture arm of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Primary Ventures, Difference Partners, Operator Partners, Night Ventures and strategic angel investors. The startup previously raised $4 million in seed funding in 2021. "We are committed to serving all students and others with learning disabilities, no matter their backgrounds or means," cofounder Emily Yudofsky said in a statement. "Creating greater educational equity and access to learning support has always been, and will continue to be, Marker’s north stars." Virtual reproductive care startup Twentyeight Health scored $8.3 million pre-Series A funding. The raise included participation from RH Capital, Seae Ventures, Impact Engine, Acumen America, Stardust Equity, California Health Care Foundation, Penn Medicine-Wharton Fund for Health, Great Oaks Venture Capital and strategic angel investors. Previous investors SteelSky Ventures, Third Prime, Town Hall Ventures, GingerBread Capital and Algaé Ventures also joined the raise. Twentyeight provides telehealth services and delivery for birth control, the morning after pill, abortion medications, herpes care, prenatal vitamins and COVID-19 tests. The startup raised $5.1 million in 2020. "Over 55% of Twentyeight Health’s users are from low-income backgrounds on Medicaid, 58% identify as BIPOC and over 60% didn’t have prior access to prescribed birth control methods. With this new funding, we look forward to showing the world that telehealth can play an important role in expanding access to equitable care," cofounder Bruno Van Tuykom said in a statement. Virtual hearing care startup Tuned raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Distributed Ventures, with participation from Idealab NY and Elements Health Ventures. Tuned offers online hearing assessments, consults with audiologists and products like headphones and ear-protection items. "This funding represents a significant milestone for our platform as we continue to expand our team of audiologists and partner with employers to integrate hearing health into employee benefits packages," Danny Aronson, CEO and cofounder of Tuned, said in a statement. "Having been impacted by hearing loss myself, I’ve experienced firsthand how expensive and ineffective this vertical of healthcare can be and the need for a telehealth platform that makes hearing care more attainable."

本次直播免费参加，点击上方链接马上预约！近年来，能够干预RNA的药物受到关注，并获得了用于几种罕见疾病的批准。一群生物技术初创公司正试图通过靶向RNA的小分子药物，获得类似的的成功。历史表明，这些公司面临着一项艰巨的任务。长期以来，人们一直认为，利用化学物质对RNA进行追踪是徒劳的，因为它具有易变的特性。当科学家的成功时，通常是偶然的。例如，在过去十年中，默沙东发现一款在研的实验性抗生素，可以阻断一种细菌RNA。辉瑞无意中发现，其药物可能会影响一种调节胆固醇的蛋白质的翻译。现在，制药公司有意这样做。在更好的测序技术、筛选方法和对RNA更广泛的理解的帮助下，研究人员可以更容易地捕捉信息分子的外观，并设计附着在它们上的药物。如果成功，它们可以帮助实现小分子目前无法达到的疾病目标，为治疗神经退行性疾病、癌症和其他疾病提供新的方法。至少有8家创业公司正在开发针对RNA的小分子药物。包括赛诺菲、阿斯利康、安进和罗氏在内的大型制药公司已对它们的研究表现出兴趣，并承诺在一系列交易中提供数亿美元的资金。1什么是靶向RNA的小分子？小分子是基于化学的药物，通常以蛋白质为靶点，阻断或改变它们的工作方式。由于它们的大小，小分子可以到达人体的大多数组织，滑入细胞，并与目标的凹凸部位结合。它们是制药行业的基石，构成了市场上绝大多数药物。但小分子的作用范围有限。在近2万个已知基因中，大约有3000个基因被认为是可成药的，这意味着它们可以被药物靶向治疗。在它们产生的蛋白质中，只有几百种是现有药物的目标。其他许多蛋白质都没有小分子可以嵌入的“口袋”，这使得它们更难以触及。以帮助制造疾病相关蛋白质的RNA分子为目标，可以给制药商提供另一种途径。从理论上讲，这种药物可以阻止一种潜在有害蛋白质的产生，或者产生更多有益蛋白质。例如，Arrakis Therapeutics正在研究一种药物，它可以阻止人体产生一种众所周知、但长期以来一直被认为是不可成药的癌症蛋白靶点Myc。一种实验性扩展治疗药物破坏与肌肉萎缩症相关的RNA。与此同时，Accent Therapeutics和Storm Therapeutics的目标，是针对参与转录和修饰RNA的特殊蛋白质。它们和该领域的其他公司面临着重大挑战，比如找到正确的RNA序列，以及在这些序列中找到正确的靶点。它们还需要确保自己的小分子只粘附在目标RNA上，而不是其他RNA上，因为后者的情形可能会导致副作用或其他健康风险。2靶向RNA的小分子差异优势干扰RNA的药物已被证明是治疗一系列疾病的有效工具。其中一种来自Alnylam制药，它首创的名为RNA干扰的方法，可以使用小的合成RNA分子使基因沉默，防止它们产生有害蛋白质。另一种类似的方法，由Ionis制药和其他公司使用，使用被称为反义寡核苷酸的核酸条来调节或关闭蛋白质的生产。这两家公司都布局了先进的RNA研究，尤其是针对治疗罕见遗传疾病的药物，如脊髓性肌萎缩症和甲状腺转淀粉样变性，以及更常见的疾病，如高胆固醇。这种药物的效果一次可持续数月之久。虽然在将这些RNA疗法送入体内方面取得了重大进展，但它们仍主要局限于肝脏中的疾病靶点，这意味着还有很多疾病无法治疗。研究还指出，它们有触发免疫反应的倾向，在某些情况下，它们难以穿过血脑屏障或进入细胞。小分子这一药物形式可以帮助解决上述问题。对制药商来说，小分子方案更为成熟，相较基于核酸的疗法更容易递送，而且因为它们是口服的，对患者更方便。3正在布局新技术的创新公司至少有8家创业公司已经成立，以开发靶向RNA的口服药物。其中一半引起了寻求在该领域投资的大型制药公司注意。这些公司中融资最多的Skyhawk Therapeutics，目前筹集了至少1.81亿美元的私人资金和股权，以及来自合作伙伴的超过4亿美元的预付现金。今年7月，赛诺菲与Skyhawk合作开发癌症药物，以及针对肿瘤和免疫疾病的研究项目。Skyhawk还与默沙东、渤健和Vertex制药达成了相关协议。Arrakis是由一批从渤健出来的资深人士创立，2015年至今已筹集了1.13亿美元。该公司的研究首先引起了罗氏和安进的注意，后者通过向Arrakis提供了总计2.65亿美元的资金，用以开发针对多种疾病靶点的药物。Accent在吸引大型制药公司方面也取得成功，它与阿斯利康和易普森签署了合作协议。这家专注于癌症研究的公司，还筹集了超过1亿美元的风险投资。2020年成立的Remix Therapeutics最近才加入这个领域，获得8100万美元的资金。今年5月，在与强生合作几个月后，后者又追加了7000万美元。Expansion Therapeutics由斯克里普斯研究所的开创性RNA研究人员组成，已获得1.35亿美元的资金，并得到包括赛诺菲和诺华风险投资部门在内的广泛投资者的支持。Storm Therapeutics、Gotham Therapeutics（去年被并入另一家名为858 Therapeutics的私营生物技术公司）和Twentyeight-seven Therapeutics也在研究靶向RNA的小分子。Storm在2021年与Exelixis合作开发了一种抗癌药物。4靶向RNA的小分子的下一步虽然近年来，一些建立在其他RNA技术基础上的药物已进入市场，但能够靶向RNA的小分子才刚刚开始显示其潜力。第一个做到这一点的是Evrysdi，这是一种由罗氏和PTC Therapeutics联合开发的药物，于2020年获得批准，可以帮助产生脊髓性肌肉萎缩患者缺乏的一种蛋白质。诺华旗下一种名为branaplam的实验性亨廷顿病药物也在进行人体试验，但最近的安全问题可能会阻碍其进展。到目前为止，还没有一家开发靶向RNA小分子的初创公司将药物带入临床试验。不过，一些公司的管线已经开始成形。Skyhawk似乎正处于进入临床试验的前夕，该公司此前曾表示，计划在今年某个时候开始将其首个药物推向人体试验。Storm计划在今年年底前对一种抗癌药物进行临床试验，Accent正与Ipsen合作推动一种抗癌药物的研发。两种候选药物都以METTL3为靶点，这是一种影响RNA功能的酶。Arrakis将癌症、血脂异常和COVID-19抗病毒药物的早期研究项目列为其最先进的目标。与此同时，Expansion正在研发治疗肌肉萎缩症和肌萎缩侧索硬化症的药物。参考资料：1.Drugging RNA with pills: small molecules for a big frontier；BioPharma Dive