Ambagon Therapeutics closes its first financing round with $85 million. The Series A funds will help advance the company’s drug discovery platform and molecular glue pipeline.
Ambagon Therapeutics, a developer of cancer molecule therapeutics, announced today the closing of its first financing round of $85 Million. Proceeds from the Series A funding will advance its drug discovery platform and its pipeline of molecular glues.
Ambagon is working on a technology called molecular glue, developing small molecule cancer drugs that stabilize the direct interaction of oncogenic proteins with the 14-3-3 class of adaptor proteins. The company developed a platform to deliver intrinsically disordered proteins to drug development. With an estimated 3,000 clients across the interactome, many of which are difficult to drug, 14-3-3 allows small molecules to leverage their endogenous regulatory function.
Many disease-relevant proteins are 14-3-3 clients, such as the cancer-driving p53 tumor suppressor, FOXO transcription factors, Raf kinases, and neurological disease targets such as tau, alpha-synuclein, and the LRRK2 kinase.
Ambagon’s platform approach will open opportunities to address significant unmet clinical needs beyond oncology. It can create first-in-class drugs that address high-value targets inaccessible by other means and unmet needs in critical therapeutic areas, including cancer, metabolic disorders, neurodegenerative, and infectious diseases.
Swiss company Nextech Invest, a global cancer therapeutics-focused venture capital firm, led the Series A financing. Investors from the seed round, RA Capital Management, Droia Ventures, Inkef Capital, AbbVie Ventures, MRL Ventures Fund, and Mission BioCapital participated in the A round and new investor Surveyor Capital.
Scott Clarke, CEO at Ambagon Therapeutics, looks forward to working with its investors to advance its modular platform. “Our deep understanding of 14-3-3 biology has broad applications for drug discovery as it opens up disordered protein regions as therapeutic targets,” Clarke said in a statement. “Combined with our proprietary structural insights, curated chemical library, and bespoke drug discovery tools, our experienced drug development team is well placed to bring forward new medicines addressing previously undruggable targets.”
Melissa McCracken, Ph.D., a principal at Nextech Invest, is thrilled to support the biotech company and its mission. “Ambagon’s modular approach for leveraging 14-3-3 biology to enable drug discovery is not just unique, but uniquely well-conceived,” said McCracken. “We are excited to see such an exciting platform translate into a very rich pipeline.”
Adam Rosenberg, Ambagon’s Chair and RA Capital Venture Partner, believes the company could potentially create a whole new class of drugs against diseases hitherto been difficult to treat. “We are proud to continue to support Ambagon as it works to create first-in-class and best-in-class drugs through targeted stabilization of protein complexes,” comments Rosenberg. Rosenberg believes the company can change the narrative for disordered targets.
