NEW YORK – Tavros Therapeutics on Tuesday announced it has raised $7.5 million in an oversubscribed seed II financing found, which it will use to identify and develop new cancer target-drug matches with its proprietary platform.
Tavros' existing investor Piedmont Capital Investments and new investor KdT Ventures led the financing round and Alexandria Venture Investments participated.
The Durham, North Carolina-based firm plans to use the funds to advance its platform for developing targeted small molecule drug candidates using synthetic lethality. The platform, which is based on functional genomics and computational analyses, is designed to identify paired genetic interactions that could ultimately become new drugs and targets, or else identify new biomarker strategies for existing molecules.
Tavros, a Duke University spinout, initially launched in 2020 with $3 million in seed financing from Piedmont Capital Investments. The firm also has a strategic partnership with Zentalis Pharmaceuticals, which has helped it to validate the platform. The firm plans to continue pursuing collaborations.
"The financing strengthens Tavros' financial foundation as we continue expanding the utility of our platform and grow our team," Tavros CEO and Cofounder Eoin McDonnell said in a statement. "Leaps have been made in understanding the genomic architecture of cancer; however, more work remains to precisely and rapidly identify which next-generation drug targets will work best in which clinical settings."