Date: 2017-01-17
Type of information: Financing round
Company: Fibrocor Therapeutics (Canada)
Investors: Evotec (Germany) MaRS Innovation (Canada)
Amount: $ 2.1 million
Funding type: financing round
Planned used: Fibrocor Therapeutics is a new company focused on developing disease modifying therapeutics in fibrosis. The company is co-founded with leading academic and clinician scientists from world-class academic institutions in Toronto, including Dr Richard Gilbert MD, PhD, Canada Research Chair in Diabetic Complications and Head of Endocrinology at St. Michael’s Hospital and Scientist with the hospital’s Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science; Dr Darren Yuen, MD, PhD, Nephrologist with St. Michael’s and Scientist with its Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science; and Dr Jeff Wrana, PhD, Senior Investigator at Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Sinai Health System. The academic/clinical team is complemented by management and business development from MaRS Innovation and drug discovery and development services from Evotec. This Toronto-based company was founded based on the transformational work of Drs. Richard Gilbert and Darren Yuen and Dr Jeff Wrana at Mount Sinai Hospital. Its platform is based on discovery of novel targets and dissection of molecular pathways from a well annotated tissue bank of diseased and non-diseased patient samples. Using this first-in class tissue discovery platform, Fibrocor has partnered with Evotec to develop first-in class therapeutics to novel molecular targets and pathways in fibrosis.
Fibrocor’s core focus will be to develop novel therapeutics that have the potential to prevent, slow and ultimately reverse the course of fibrosis. Fibrocor has already identified a lead programme and will partner with Evotec to develop novel molecules with the anticipation of nominating a lead candidate in 2018. In addition, Fibrocor will collaborate with its academic co-founders to expand access to tissue samples to include several relevant tissues, such as lung, liver, kidney, colon and skin. Fibrocor will seek to identify novel targets and molecular pathways that are identified from and validated in clinical samples from individuals with the targeted disease for follow-on drug discovery and development programmes in fibrosis, generating a robust pipeline of novel therapeutic targets that it will subsequently work with Evotec on.
Others: * On January 17, 2017, Evotec and MaRS Innovation announced the launch of Fibrocor Therapeutics, a Toronto-based company focused on developing first-in-class therapeutics targeting fibrotic diseases. The company was launched with CDN $ 2.8 m (approx. $ 2.1 m) financing, which includes cash from MaRS Innovation. Evotec will provide all drug discovery activities and will also receive an equity stake.
Therapeutic area: Fibrotic diseases
