Long­time biotech ex­ec David de Graaf has the cash he needs to set up the pre­clin­i­cal foun­da­tion for his coen­zyme A me­tab­o­lism com­pa­ny Comet. A few high-pro­file in­vestors joined the ven­ture syn­di­cate to sup­ply Comet with $28.5 mil­lion in launch mon­ey — enough to get it two years in­to the plat­form-build­ing game, with­in knock­ing dis­tance of the clin­ic.

Canaan jumped in along­side ex­ist­ing in­vestor Sofinno­va Part­ners to co-lead the round, with par­tic­i­pa­tion by ex­ist­ing in­vestor INKEF Cap­i­tal and new in­vestor BioIn­no­va­tion Cap­i­tal.

Pe­ter Van Vlas­se­laer As­ceneu­ron

By next year Comet will have 3 or 4 com­pounds un­der the mi­cro­scope, with plans to take 1 of those in­to an IND sub­mis­sion for 2021, clos­ing in on the clin­ic. In the mean­time, says the Syn­tim­mune vet, they’ll be look­ing at part­ner­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to help beef up their bank ac­count and grow the fledg­ling pipeline.

Dis­cov­ered 70 years ago, every cell re­quires coen­zyme A to break down fats and sug­ars to cre­ate en­er­gy. And de­fects in the path­way are linked to a pletho­ra of dis­eases, with ap­pli­ca­tions in neu­rol­o­gy, meta­bol­ic dis­eases and can­cer.

Art Taveras LinkedIn

Comet has a team of 8 in place in their new Kendall Square lab, with plans to grow to 20 by the end of next year, tap­ping in on lo­cal tal­ent as they con­cen­trate their forces on the metabo­lites linked to coen­zyme A. “The metabo­lites,” says de Graaf, “are in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant.”

“The com­pa­ny is op­er­at­ing in a vir­tu­al white space, yet has built a broad patent port­fo­lio around its core tech­nol­o­gy,” says chair­man Pe­ter Van Vlas­se­laer, who has a string of star­tups to his cred­it, in­clud­ing Ar­mo. “We see ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in the ar­eas of im­muno-me­tab­o­lism and neu­ro-me­tab­o­lism.”

The team in­cludes chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer Art Taveras and co-founder and chief tech­nol­o­gy of­fi­cer Enej Kuscer, who’s worked in this field for years.

Enej Kuscer LinkedIn

There’s at least one oth­er coen­zyme A com­pa­ny out there, un­der the wing of Bridge­Bio in San Fran­cis­co. But de Graaf ap­pears less in­ter­est­ed in the rare dis­ease ap­proach to the field than the broad­er plat­form that can be built around this tar­get. And that leaves plen­ty of tar­gets of op­por­tu­ni­ty.

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