A completely new approach in cancer therapy
KyDo secures €4.45 million seed funding
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KyDo Therapeutics GmbH (KyDo), a biotechnology company committed to developing novel covalent-allosteric small molecule inhibitors with the potential to become first-in-class oncology drugs, announced the closing of its seed financing round of €4.45 million. The financing will support the development of KyDo’s frontrunner compounds for the treatment of challenging cancer variants.
The Dortmund-based company was jointly founded by Lead Discovery Center GmbH (LDC), together with scientists from the Rauh Lab at TU Dortmund University. Daniel Rauh, Professor and Chair of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry, is a leading expert in structure-based inhibitor design, protein X-ray crystallography and drug discovery. The co-founders will continue to actively guide KyDo’s management and scientific direction as collaborative partners, advisors, and members of the Scientific Advisory Board.
The core technology of KyDo was originally developed at TU Dortmund University in the Rauh Lab, and was subsequently advanced into a drug discovery program through a collaboration between LDC, TU Dortmund University, Taros Chemicals GmbH & Co. KG, and the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo).
Led by an experienced team of managers and advisors, as well as by a robust investment syndicate, KyDo is well positioned to deliver groundbreaking science with the aim of improving patient care. KyDo announced today the successful completion of a €4.45 million seed financing round. The financing round was successfully spearheaded by I&I Bio together with KHAN-II, and with notable participation of VORNvc, and TU capital.
This new funding will support the development of KyDo’s covalent-allosteric drug discovery platform, propelling its frontrunner inhibitors towards IND-enabling studies.
“Our unique approach to address a highly relevant cancer target with novel precision medicine bears a huge potential to improve the efficacy, minimize the side effects and enable completely new combination therapies that are urgently needed,” said Matthias Stein-Gerlach, CEO of KyDo. “We are thrilled to gain the support of such an esteemed collection of investors in our quest to find first-in-class compounds to address unmet therapeutic needs in cancer.”
“KyDo has positioned itself at the forefront of covalent-allosteric inhibitor research, a novel and exciting area in the fields of drug discovery and medicine with immense potential,” said Barbora Šumová, Partner at I&I Bio and KyDo board member. “The company is built around LDC’s and Prof. Daniel Rauh’s drug discovery expertise and track record of bringing experimental medicines to patients.”
Bert Klebl, CEO & CSO of LDC added: “We are excited that our promising program can continue at KyDo. This is an important step toward urgently needed therapeutic applications for cancer patients, which will be driven forward by KyDo’s dedicated and competent team, together with its collaboration partners.”
"Covalent-allosteric modulation of target proteins represents a completely new approach in cancer therapy. In my laboratory at TU Dortmund University, we pioneered this concept and demonstrated its potential to overcome resistance mechanisms that limit current therapies. With KyDo, together with trusted partners, we now have the opportunity to translate this science into real medicines for patients. The successful seed financing underlines both the quality of our science and the strength of Dortmund and North Rhine-Westphalia as a drug discovery hub,” added Daniel Rauh.
Dirk Kanngiesser, Managing Partner at TU capital, said: “We were impressed by the scientific depth and translational focus of KyDo. This is exactly the kind of groundbreaking science emerging from TU Dortmund University that we aim to support, in order to build globally competitive companies rooted in our region.”
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