Breakthru Medicine has emerged from stealth after closing a $60 million Series A financing round, following a previously undisclosed seed round, and is developing new therapeutic modalities for cancer patients facing significant unmet needs.
Based in Phoenix, the company was founded by biotech veterans Steve Potts, PhD, Mark Mulvihill, PhD, and Brian Barnett, MD. Breakthru’s leadership team is positioning the company around a “patient-first, tumor-agnostic targeting approach” and says it intends to apply “pattern recognition” early in development to identify the most promising programs and cut those unlikely to deliver breakthrough outcomes.
Breakthru said its technology strategy spans multiple drug formats, including small molecules, next-generation antibody-drug conjugate payloads, and molecular glues. While the company has not yet disclosed specifics of its molecular glue platform or pipeline, it said the effort is focused on targeted therapy areas where existing approaches have had limited success and where new modalities could expand the range of druggable targets in oncology.
The company’s board and investor group includes Dave Morehead, who leads Baylor University’s $2.5 billion endowment; Fred Eshelman, PharmD, founder of Eshelman Ventures and a founder and former leader of Pharmaceutical Product Development; and Mark Gergen, who Breakthru said has been involved in multiple biotech exits and strategic partnerships.
KEY QUOTES
“In creating Breakthru Medicine, we assembled an incredible in-house team that over the course of their careers have been directly involved in more than a dozen therapies that are currently approved or in late-stage clinical trials, with the majority of these having received FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation. An aspirational goal for the company is to set a high bar for development candidates—to be able to pattern recognize early which programs truly are likely to achieve breakthrough success and ruthlessly eliminate those that will not. We are taking a patient-first, tumor-agnostic targeting approach that requires disruptive therapeutic modalities.”
Steve Potts, Chief Executive Officer
“At Breakthru Medicine, we are redefining what’s possible by bringing every modality to the table to tackle the hardest-to-drug targets. From small molecules to next-generation ADC payloads and molecular glues, our platform is designed to expand the druggable universe for patients who urgently need new options.”
Mark Mulvihill, Chief Scientific Officer
