Light Horse Therapeutics has been established as a new small molecule therapeutics developer, with a $62m Series A financing led by its founding investor Versant Ventures.
Investors including Mubadala Capital, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Taiho Ventures, and AbbVie also participated in the financing round.
Light Horse is the latest company started by Versant’s Inception Discovery Engine, with Brian Liau, Ben Cravatt, and Nathanael Gray as scientific co-founders.
The company has developed a unique precision gene editing-based platform that evaluates proteins in their native environment for faster discovery of clinical candidates.
The technology transforms conventional drug discovery on its head by initially identifying novel functional domains and then screening for chemistry.
Furthermore, Light Horse’s internal programmes are progressing through preclinical testing, paving the way towards the development of disruptive therapies.
Light Horse CEO Markus Renschler said: “We have a unique capability to interrogate proteins and pathways, identifying functionally critical sites that can drive the development of groundbreaking first-in-class therapies.
“Our initial focus addresses high-value, historically challenging oncology targets with the opportunity to apply the technology to other therapeutic areas in the future.”
Light Horse chairman Thomas Daniel said: “Light Horse has deep scientific talent, a very experienced management team, and a strong syndicate of strategic and institutional investors to enhance its delivery of exceptional drug candidates addressing unmet medical need.”
In a separate development, Light Horse Therapeutics has teamed up with Novartis to identify and develop potentially advanced therapeutics using Light Horse’s drug discovery platform.
Under the multi-target collaboration, Light Horse will receive $25m in upfront payment.
Also, it is eligible to receive $1bn in further research, development, and sales milestone payments, along with royalties on licensed therapeutics.
Novartis discovery sciences head John Tallarico said: “Light Horse’s high-calibre team has built a cutting-edge discovery platform that rapidly enables the exploration of core biological areas of interest, the identification of novel targets and the functionalization of high-value targets.
“This collaboration has the potential to create first-in-class therapeutics capable of driving meaningful benefit for patients.”
Light Horse CEO Markus Renschler said: “The Novartis collaboration presents an extraordinary opportunity to leverage our unbiased genetic screening platform and proprietary chemical libraries to address novel, high-value targets previously considered hard to drug.”
Last year, Swiss pharmaceutical firm Novartis and Versant Ventures established an independent, discovery-stage biotechnology company, Borealis Biosciences.
Borealis Biosciences develops next-generation xRNA-based medicines for kidney diseases.
