EFTA01092526.pdf

BioCentury, THE BERNSTEIN REPORT ON BIOBUSINESS JULY 16 2012 PAGE Al6OF 25 Emerging Company Profile Coferon: Some assembly required By Michael Flanagan target inhibition occurs, Goddard said the Senior Writer Coferon Inc. clinical utility of that pathway has not Rather than trying to make ever smaller been validated. Thus, the company has no molecules that retain activity against com- New York. N.Y. plans to move the program into the clinic. plex targets, Coferon Inc. Is using a Technology: Small molecule monomers Coferon instead is concentrating on bioorthogonal linker technology to de- that self-assemble intracellularly two discovery projects. One is an epige- liver two halves of a therapeutic that self- Disease focus: Autoimmune, cancer. netic program focused on the bromo- assemble on the target after gaining entry infectious disease domains of the BET family of proteins, into a cell. The company was set to an- with a primary target of bromodomain nounce the close of a $12 million series B Clinical status: Discovery containing 4 (BRD4), which has been round on Monday this week. Founded: 2009 by Francis Barany, validated in mouse models in immunology Targeting intracellular protein-protein Donald Bergstrom, Maneesh Pingle and and oncology. interactions requires walking a fine line — Derek Small The BET bromodomains monitor his- a therapeutic needs to be small enough to University collaborators: Weill Cornell tone acetylation — the reverse process of enter the cell but large enough to modulate Medical Institute. Purdue University. histone deacetylation — and act to regu- the interface between two bulky proteins. Stony Brook University late gene expression by helping to control One way to do so is to use macrocycles, Corporate partners: None when and what portion of DNA is ex- which feature a ring structure adorned Number of employees: 5 posed by the chromatin structure. with functional subunits. These typically The proteins were considered un- Funds raised: $19 million range in size from 500-2,000 Da., making druggable because they do not possess them larger than most small molecules but Investors: Hatteras Venture Partners: enzymatic activity until a pair of groups smaller than biologics (see "Ito Materials," Medlmmune Ventures: Ascent Biomedi- reported in 2010 the discovery of a small Al3 & "Mini-Macrocycle Marriage," A15). cal Ventures; Morningside Group: and molecule BET inhibitor (see ScIBX: Sdence- Coferon is taking a new approach that angel investors Business eXchange, Aug. f 1, 2011). it hopes will allow for better potency and CEO: Cohn Goddard The other program is addressing an selectivity than agents like macrocycles Patents: None Issued undisclosed infectious disease target. because there will be less need to de- Coferon hopes to find a partner for the crease target coverage to optimize an bromodomain project and wants to carry agent's ADMET properties, according to ng related to the linker technology and the Infectious disease program through Chairman and CEO Colin Goddard. It will seek composition ofmatter patents for Phase II testing before seeking a partner. also should be amenable to a wider range each individual candidate. Investors in the company's $12 million of targets by allowing for delivery of larger The company picked up the technol- series B round include Hatteras Venture; post-assembly agents. ogy at the concept stage in 2009, and Medlmmune Ventures; and Ascent Bio- The company's reversible covalent according to Goddard, achieved its first medical. linker chemistry was invented together by proof of principle this year by showing The money should provide Coferon groups at Weill Cornell Medical Insti- dimers were able to inhibit beta tryptase with 12-18 months of runway. "which tute and Purdue University and is in human mast cells in both cellular and should let us reach the candidate genera- exclusively licensed to Coferon. mouse models. Coferon plans to publish tion stage with two or three targets and The strategy is to take a therapeutic the data within 12 months. furnish one significant partnership in the that is too bulky for oral delivery or cell Both homodimeric pairs and het- epigenetic space." Goddard said. permeability and split it into two smaller erodimeric pairs were shown to work, he Prior to this week, Coferon had raised components. added. about $7 million via multiple closes of a The technology first links the two chemi- "Proving in live cell assays and in vivo series A round from angel investors and cally synthesized monomers, which disso- mouse models that the technology actu- Morningside. ciate under physiological conditions in- ally worked was the driver that allowed us side the body so that they are small enough to attract our new investors." said COMPANIES AND INSTITUTIONS MENTIONED to cross the cell membrane. Once inside Goddard. Coferon Inc.. New York. N.Y. the cell, the linker moieties engineered Although beta tryptase was ideal for Purdue University. West Lafayette. Ind. onto each monomer dimerize using the showing monomers can be delivered to Weill Cornell Medical Institute. New York. macromolecular binding site as the tem- target mast cells where dimerization and N.Y. plate. "The molecular weight of each of the monomers is 500-700 Da. so we can Email Alerts 31 double the binding footprint and offer Click on Set Email Alert from the biocentury.com home page to get started. better selectivity, specificity and potency," Now you can get alerted when BioCentury publishes an article said Goddard. on topics you are interested in. Coferon has patent applications pend- EFTA01092526