XTuit Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Cambridge, Ma-based biopharmaceutical company developing a novel class of therapeutics targeting disease-promoting microenvironment in cancer and fibrotic diseases, raised $22m in Series A financing.
The round was led by New Enterprise Associates and joined by founding investor Polaris Partners, and new investors CTI Life Sciences, Arcus Ventures and Omega Funds. In conjunction with the funding, David Mott, General Partner and head of the healthcare practice of New Enterprise Associates, will join the board of XTuit.
The company intends to use the funds to advance the development of its lead products into the clinic in oncology and liver cirrhosis and NASH and to build its biomarker platform which will enable rapid clinical proof-of-concept.
Led by Alan Crane, Chief Executive Officer, and Peter Blume-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, XTuit developed proprietary, microenvironment-activated drugs with single agent, disease reversing activity in fibrotic inflammatory conditions. In addition, the drugs have strong synergistic combination activity in cancer where they enhance anti-tumor efficacy of standard-of-care drugs, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, chemotherapy, and targeted agents. To support the development of its drugs, the company is now building a novel quantitative, tissue-based biomarker platform for efficacy prediction.
Scientific founders include Rakesh K. Jain, Ph.D., professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Robert Langer, Sc.D., professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ronald Evans, Ph.D., professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
FinSMEs
11/06/2015