Precision therapy approach secures small biotech $42M haul to combat disease that inspired the Ice Bucket Challenge
Akin to cystic fibrosis (CF), scientists understand that certain mutations contribute to the development of the fatal neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). And much like CF drugmaker Vertex, a small Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech is forging a path to engineering precision therapies to treat the disease that killed visionary physicist Stephen Hawking.
The company, christened QurAlis, now has $42 million in its coffers with three preclinical programs and 5 employees (including senior management) to combat an illness that has long flummoxed researchers, resulting in a couple of approved therapies over the course of decades, neither of which attacks the underlying cause of the rare progressive condition that attacks nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord responsible for controlling voluntary muscles.
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