October 14, 2014
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Cambridge, Mass.-based Raze Therapeutics today announced closing on Series A financing worth $24 million from investors including Atlas Venture, MPM Capital Management, MS Ventures, Partners Innovation Fund, Astellas Venture Management and Novartis .
“Aberrant growth and the accumulation of biomass are hallmarks of cancer,” said Jason Rhodes, acting chief executive officer, in a statement. “Raze targets newly identified pathways that are essential to this anabolic metabolism and tumor survival. We have created a powerful drug discovery platform and are rapidly advancing programs directed to solid tumors and hematological malignancies.”
Rhodes recently spent more than four years as the CFO and eventually president of Cambridge-based Epizime, currently valued at about $1 billion. Raze was founded by Atlas Ventures.
As part of the financing, Peter Barrett of Atlas Ventures, also a co-founder, will be chairman of the board of directors. The board includes Ansbert Gadicke of MPM Capital Management, Reza Halse of Partners Innovation Fund, and Nilesh Kumar of MS Ventures.
The company is built on a proprietary platform based on the function of mitochondrial one-carbon (1C) metabolism, which, in part, causes rapid biomass accumulation. Because of genetic mutations, cancer cells stimulate these pathways with resultant aggressive tumors. The company’s approach is to identify the targets of 1C metabolism, which are highly specific in tumors, and attempt to develop cancer drugs that selectively inhibit and stop the anabolic processes. The science itself is based on discoveries by Vamsi Mootha of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Joshua Rabinowitz of Princeton, and David Sabatini of the Whitehead Institute.
The funds raised from the Series A round will be used to continue to develop and target specific pathways. The company’s Scientific Advisory Board includes three of its scientific founders: Keith Flaherty, director of the Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies at the Massachusetts General Cancer Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; Michael Gilman, currently acting as a venture partner at Atlas Venture, as well as CEO of Padlock Therapeutics; and Adam Friedman, an Atlas Entrepreneur in Resident (EIR).
Atlas Ventures focuses on investments in the earliest stages of tech and life sciences. The company recently announced it would split into two separate companies, one for life sciences and the other for technology franchises.
“After 35 years as a diversified fund, this new direction is not a decision we came to lightly,” wrote Atlas partner Bruce Booth in a blog post. “It became clear to us that evolving towards two independent sector-focused funds was the best configuration going forward.”
