Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company Rheostat Therapeutics announced it has raised $23 million in Series A funding to develop potential treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, cognition, and rare diseases.
This round of funding was co-led by MRLV and AbbVie Ventures. Amgen Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Mayo Clinic also participated in this round. Existing investors SV Health Investors and the Dementia Discovery Fund have also participated.
In conjunction with this funding round, MRLV President Reza Halse and AbbVie Ventures managing director John Gustofson is joining the board of directors at the company.
The proceeds will be used for advancing its programs towards clinical trials and to build its internal team. Plus it will be used for expanding studies evaluating biomarkers.
Rheostat is working towards developing novel treatments for neurodegenerative disease through the modulation of mitophagy and autophagy. And the company’s central thesis is that the degradation of toxic cellular components is a fundamental node of biology and mutations that impair the clearance pathways have been linked with multiple neurodegenerative diseases.
Rheostat is also working to leverage its understanding of these pathways to discover and develop new small molecules that would restore cellular balance and treat neurodegenerative and rare diseases.
“Mitophagy and autophagy represent a fundamental, powerful node of biology with the real potential to improve the lives of patients suffering from a range of neurodegenerative diseases and senescence. Our investors have provided our world-class scientific team with the funding to continue to build Rheostat and advance our programs toward the clinic,” said Rheostat’s MD Chairman and Interim CEO Joshua Resnick.
Rheostat was incubated and seeded by SV Health Investors and the Dementia Discovery Fund. And Rheostat was founded by Tim Harris (EVP R&D at Bioverativ), Wade Harper (chair and professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Bert and Natalie Vallee Professor of Molecular Pathology), Tony Hyman (Director of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics: Dresden, Germany), and Ivan Dikic (Director of the Institute of Biochemistry II at the University Clinic, Frankfurt). Magdalene Moran works as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer.
And the company is guided by a Scientific Advisory Board, which includes Wolfdieter Springer, Ph.D., (Mayo Clinic) and Bernardo Sabatini, MD, Ph.D., (Alice and Rodman W. Moorhead III Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School; and HHMI Investigator).
