The es­tro­gen re­cep­tor (ER) — which is in­hib­it­ed by tar­get­ed drugs such as the hor­mone ther­a­py ta­mox­ifen and aro­matase in­hibitors — is a tran­scrip­tion fac­tor im­pli­cat­ed in 75% of breast can­cers. Re­search from Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty sug­gests that the DNA in­ter­ac­tions and tran­scrip­tion­al scope of ER re­ly on a pro­tein that plays a key role in de­ter­min­ing tu­mor growth and pro­gres­sion — even when re­sis­tance to ex­ist­ing drugs has built up.

Ja­son Car­roll Az­e­ria

Az­e­ria Ther­a­peu­tics — a com­pa­ny found­ed by Ja­son Car­roll from the Can­cer Re­search UK Cam­bridge In­sti­tute at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cam­bridge who spear­head­ed the re­search — has now en­ticed Syn­cona and about $41.4 mil­lion in fund­ing to de­vel­op ther­a­pies for drug-re­sis­tant breast can­cer.

The com­pa­ny, which was spun out of Sixth El­e­ment Cap­i­tal and Can­cer Re­search UK’s com­mer­cial part­ner­ships team in 2017, is laser-fo­cused on pi­o­neer fac­tors — the pro­teins that dic­tate where in the genome tran­scrip­tion fac­tors as­so­ciate with DNA and what genes are reg­u­lat­ed.

Its lead pro­gram is tar­get­ing the pi­o­neer fac­tor FOXA1, which has shown to be in­stru­men­tal in the tu­mor de­vel­op­ment and main­te­nance of ER-pos­i­tive lu­mi­nal breast can­cer (typ­i­cal­ly 30% of these pa­tients progress to late-stage en­docrine-re­sis­tant dis­ease). FOXA1 is req­ui­site in all ER-DNA in­ter­ac­tions and in the ab­sence of FOXA1, ER does not li­aise with DNA, switch genes on or cause cells to grow. Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, FOXA1 is al­so es­sen­tial for cells that have grown re­sis­tant to stan­dard ther­a­pies, such as ta­mox­ifen, Car­roll’s re­search sug­gests.

The fund­ing will help Az­e­ria shep­herd the ex­per­i­men­tal ther­a­py in­to the clin­ic and help the com­pa­ny ex­pand its ar­se­nal of in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al drugs.

The Cam­bridge, UK-based drug de­vel­op­er pre­vi­ous­ly raised £5.5 mil­lion in a Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing from the CRT Pi­o­neer Fund, which is man­aged by UK based fund man­ag­er Sixth El­e­ment Cap­i­tal.

This fresh in­jec­tion of £32 mil­lion in Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing was led by Syn­cona, which made a hefty £29.5 mil­lion com­mit­ment.

After a more than 15-year run, a California-based biotech is exploring options, including a sale, after its lead experimental therapy failed an exploratory mid-stage study in patients with middle ear infections characterized by a build-up of fluid behind the eardrum.

The company, initially called Tokai Pharmaceuticals but which subsequently changed its name to Novus Therapeutics in 2017, saw its shares more than halve on Monday after the drug — OP0201— did not pass muster as an adjunct therapy to oral antibiotics in infants and children aged 6 to 24 months with acute otitis media (OM).

The IPO engine is thriving, never mind the rampage of the coronavirus crisis on R&D timelines.

On Friday, along with synthetic lethality-focused biotech Repare Therapeutics, another Bristol Myers partner Forma Therapeutics also unveiled its plans to vault on to the Nasdaq — penciling in a target of $150 million.

The Watertown, Massachusetts-based company — which poached senior Genentech executive Frank Lee to take over the reins last year after more than a decade under founder Steve Tregay — raised a plump $100 million late last year, while shepherding its sickle cell disease (SCD) drug through an early-stage trial.