StemCell Therapy

A Cambridge biotech that wants to develop tailor-made medicines for cancers and diseases of the immune system said Thursday it has raised $168 million in venture funding, bringing the startups total capital to $386 million after 16 months of recruiting investors.

Odyssey Therapeutics will use the money to advance a portfolio of drugs to treat solid tumors and immune disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus, according to the startups founder and chief executive, Gary D. Glick. The firm of 160 employees is housed in temporary quarters on Binney Street in Kendall Square and plans to move to Sleeper Street in Bostons Seaport District in early December.

Odyssey has eight drug development programs that rely on the cutting-edge approach known as precision medicine. In contrast to the one-size-fits-all design of most drugs, precision medicine, sometimes called personalized medicine, takes into account differences in peoples genes, environments, and lifestyles when creating medications.

The startup is using artificial intelligence and machine learning, among other tools, to discover and develop drugs. And it is focusing on serious, common diseases with few, if any, effective treatments, unlike the Massachusetts biotechs working on medicines for rare disorders drugs that can carry six- and even seven-figure price tags.

Were not looking to market and commercialize in what has historically been thought of as rare or orphan diseases, Glick said.

The latest funding round, Odysseys second, was led by General Catalyst, a 22-year-old Cambridge-based venture capital firm. At least eight investors from the first round ponied up more money for the second, as did a number of new investors, which further validates our approach to therapeutic development, Glick said.

Glick is a serial biotech investor and former longtime chemistry professor at the University of Michigan who founded Boston-based Scorpion Therapeutics and previously co-founded Lycera, another privately held biotech, in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The chair of Odysseys board is Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, the former CEO of Boston-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, who now serves as executive chairman of its board. Glick said he has known Leiden since around 2009, when the latter was managing director of Clarus Ventures and chaired Lyceras board. He considers Leiden a mentor, saying, There really is no better biotech executive than Jeff.

Leiden said Odyssey has quickly attracted investors because it possesses the three Ts: the team, the targets, and the technologies. It boasts seasoned drug hunters from Novartis and other companies, has pinpointed a promising raft of drug targets, and is deploying technologies ranging from artificial intelligence to the engineering of so-called small molecule drugs medicines made of small chemical molecules and typically dispensed as pills.

I get asked to join the boards of lots of companies, Leiden said. I said yes to this one, he added, because its a very unusual company.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.

View post:
Cambridge biotech raises $168 million to fight cancer and other diseases - The Boston Globe

This entry was posted on October 15, 2022 at 1:46 am and is filed under Personalized Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |