Auron Therapeutics has exited stealth mode with $48 million and backing from Big Pharma Eli Lilly, touting a new machine-learning platform and lofty hopes to flip the current cancer treatment paradigm on its head.
Lilly joins a roster of investors, including series A leader DCVC Bio—a venture capital firm which hosts a portfolio including Creyon Bio, Totus Medicines, and GenEdit—among others. Other series A participants include Mubadala Capital, Apollo Health Ventures, Arkin Bio Ventures, Polaris Partners, Qiming Venture Partners USA, the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge, Franklin Berger and Casdin Capital.
The Massachusetts biotech will funnel the cash toward developing new cancer therapies that target dysregulated differentiation and cellular plasticity, as well as expanding its machine learning-based computational platform—dubbed AURigin—to identify new drug targets.
The disruption of normal cellular differentiation processes can trigger tumor formation and progression. While most current oncology therapeutics aim to destroy dividing tumor cells or activate an immune response, Auron’s multi-omics platform lets scientists quickly identify and then drug differentiated pathways hijacked by cancer cells, according to Auron CEO and founder Kate Yen, Ph.D.
The series A money will also help push an undisclosed lead program toward clinical development and grow the biotech’s R&D team.
Alongside the financing round, Auron has expanded its executive team, tapping David Millan, Ph.D.—who has held various leadership roles across FogHorn Therapeutics, Forma Therapeutics, and Pfizer—as chief scientific officer. University of California, Los Angeles professor Thomas Graeber, Ph.D., is stepping in as chief data officer, while Andrea Armstrong will become official chief people officer after serving in the role part-time since last August.
Syndax Pharmaceuticals leader and former AstraZeneca exec Briggs Morrison, M.D., has also joined as independent chair of Auron’s board.
“The novel targets identified using Auron’s platform may enable completely innovative approaches to treating cancer that are complementary, rather than competitive, with existing therapeutics,” Morrison said in a July 20 release.