Rapafusyn Pharmaceuticals, a leader in the discovery and development of therapeutic drugs based on non-degrading molecular glues, announced the initial closings of an extension of its Series A financing, bringing the total round to $28 Million. The funding was led by 3E Bioventures Capital and Proxima Ventures Ltd. with participation from Lapam Capital.
The funding will drive the progress of Rapafusyn’s innovative and diverse pipeline of macrocyclic peptide-based non-degrading molecular glues and further advance its internal capabilities. Rapafusyn’s industry-leading libraries of RapaGlues can swiftly produce novel chemical entities for targets that are usually challenging or currently undruggable by other modalities.
This breakthrough offers a promising solution for numerous difficult-to-drug targets, paving the way for significant advancements in drug discovery and development to address high unmet medical needs of patients.
KEY QUOTES:
“Non-degrading molecular glues were previously found serendipitously. The RapaGlue platform has the ability to create non-degrading molecular glues by design.”
– Dr. Jun O. Liu, scientific founder of Rapafusyn and a pioneer whose ground-breaking discovery of the molecular glue mechanism for FK506 and cyclosporin A at Harvard University with Professor Stuart Schreiber and colleagues in 1991 formed the foundation of the field of non-degrading molecular glues
“Our RapaGlue platform is primed to bring groundbreaking therapies to patients. This innovative non-degrading molecular glue modality integrates the benefits of molecular glues with cyclic peptides, creating cell-permeable drug candidates. Our robust platform allows us to tackle disease targets where other modalities have struggled. We are very pleased to have such distinguished investors participate in this round of financing.”
– Dr. Sean Hu, CEO of Rapafusyn
“Rapafusyn offers a new class of macrocyclic molecules that function as non-degrading molecular glues. It can target a broad range of membrane or intracellular targets, including those traditionally difficult-to-drug, such as PPIs (protein-protein interaction targets), transcriptions factors, SLCs/transporters, ion channels and others. I am excited about the platform, because for the first time in drug discovery, we have a systematic and efficient way to screen for small molecule modulators beyond the traditional Lipinski rules and protein degraders popular in recent years.”
– Dr. Karen Liu, a Founding Partner at 3E Bioventures
“We are very attracted by and delighted to invest in Rapafusyn’s non-degrading molecular glue platform. It is well differentiated and, in many ways, superior to other drug modalities in addressing challenging or undruggable disease targets. We are also impressed by the caliber of the Rapafusyn operating and advisory teams and are confident in the future success of the company.”
– Haolin Sung, Partner at Proxima Ventures
“By applying an innovative and well validated approach to effectively drug a broad spectrum of challenging or undruggable disease targets, Rapafusyn has the potential to address a major gap and unmet need in the pharma industry. We believe in Rapafusyn’s potential to discover transformational medicines to benefit patients globally.”
– Zhihua Yu, Founding Managing Parter of Lapam Capital
