NEW YORK – Researchers from NYU Langone Health's Perlmutter Cancer Center and Apple Tree Partners (ATP) on Monday launched Aethon Therapeutics to develop cancer drugs that can overcome therapeutic resistance.
Aethon launched with $30 million in Series A financing, $25 million of which comes from ATP. NYU Langone also participated in the round and holds equity in the company.
The new firm's drug development efforts will be fueled by the HapImmune immunotherapy drug discovery platform, invented by Shohei Koide, a professor at NYU Langone's department of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology, and Benjamin Neel, director of the Perlmutter Cancer Center. NYU Langone Health and its technology opportunities and ventures arm has exclusively licensed the HapImmune platform to Aethon.
Aethon will use the platform to design antibodies that increase the antigenicity of cancer-specific proteins that can be targeted with any covalent drug and presented by the major histocompatibility complex. The antibodies are able to activate T cells that will specifically kill tumor cells, including those that have become treatment resistant.
"ATP worked with Drs. Koide and Neel to establish Aethon because we were struck by the novelty of their original observation: That when covalent inhibitors bind to their target proteins inside cancer cells, they produce a peptide conjugate 'beacon' that is delivered only to the surface of cancer cells, not to healthy cells," Raj Chopra, head of oncology for ATP, said in a statement. "Aethon has discovered customized antibodies that home in on that beacon, making the cancer cells vulnerable to attack."
Chopra, who is acting CEO for Aethon, added that the firm is initially focused on advancing drugs that will work in combinations with KRAS and EGFR inhibitors.
Paul Da Silva Jardine, an ATP venture partner, will be acting CSO at the New York City-based company. Seth Harrison, ATP founder and managing partner, is chair of Aethon's board of directors. Koide and Neel are scientific advisers to Aethon.