An im­munother­a­py pill for pso­ri­a­sis? Es­calier gets $19M Se­ries B to tack­le R&D

A start­up that’s hop­ing to of­fer pso­ri­a­sis pa­tients a pill to treat their con­di­tion (in­stead of the stan­dard treat­ment of steroids or in­jec­tions) has closed a $19 mil­lion round of fund­ing to take two of its pro­grams to the clin­ic.

The com­pa­ny, Es­calier Bio­sciences BV, is work­ing on two im­munother­a­py pro­grams that might tweak the pro­duc­tion of IL-17, a cy­tokine that’s linked to pso­ri­a­sis. Es­calier is tar­get­ing the nu­clear hor­mone re­cep­tor RORγt, which it says is the “mas­ter reg­u­la­tor” of Th17 cell dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, and the pro­duc­tion of pro-in­flam­ma­to­ry cy­tokines like IL-17a and IL-17f. RORγt in­hibitors have shown to re­duce the pro­duc­tion of IL-17 in im­mune cells.

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