PIC Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused to developing life-changing cancer therapies, announced today the completion of a $35 million Series A funding led by OrbiMed. Lumira Ventures and Harrington Discovery Institute are two other new investors in this round. Existing investors in the company, notably Advent Life Sciences and Belinda Termeer, also contributed and provided initial seed investment that was critical to completing crucial milestones.
The financing proceeds will be utilized to push the company’s development-stage small molecule medication, an allosteric protein translation modulator targeting eIF4E, into first-in-man, first-in-mechanism clinical trials in advanced metastatic breast cancer. The money will also help the company expand its pipeline of emerging cancer indications.
PIC Therapeutics is focusing on a fundamental process that occurs at the intersection of numerous oncogenic signaling pathways and culminates in apoptotic cancer cell death while sparing normal cells. Allosteric regulation of eIF4E has significant advantages over past techniques because it targets many pharmacological drivers at the same time, allowing the company’s small medicines to truly stimulate differential CAP dependent translation in target cells.
PIC drugs modify but do not impede protein translation, according to preclinical investigations. PIC drugs modify cellular proteomes mechanistically, resulting in a quick and dramatic reduction in cancer cell viability by apoptosis. Inducing apoptosis rather than senescence is a key component of PIC’s approach to this tough target.
