Kymera Therapeutics, a US-based developer of drugs for hitherto untreatable diseases, raised $30m yesterday in a series A round co-led by the corporate venturing subsidiaries of pharmaceutical firms Amgen and Eli Lilly.
Lilly Ventures and Amgen Ventures were joined in the round by Atlas Venture, the venture capital firm that incubated Kymera. Atlas Venture also provided the startup’s seed funding, though details of its investment have not been revealed.
Kymera is using predictive modelling developing therapies that will combat diseases by the body’s protein recycling mechanism, causing it to degrade proteins that cause the disease.
The company is working on drugs in the areas of oncology, immuno-oncology, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and intends to form development partnerships with larger pharmaceutical companies as it prepares to identify its lead product candidate in 2018.
Laurent Audoly will take the chief executive and president roles at Kymera, having joined from pharmaceutical company Pierre Fabre. Steve Hall, general partner at Lilly Ventures, is on Kymera’s board of directors.
Audoly said: “90% of the proteome cannot be addressed with conventional drug discovery technologies. Kymera’s platform can be deployed against practically any disease-causing protein.
“Our targeted protein degradation technology and integrated drug discovery platform has the potential to generate game-changing new therapies for otherwise intractable diseases.”
Kymera is also one of the residents at JLabs, the life sciences incubator formed by pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson.