Gunderson Dettmer represented client Solu Therapeutics, a precision-medicine company founded by Longwood, in its $31 million seed financing co-led by Longwood and Santé Ventures. Solu Therapeutics develops therapeutics to eliminate disease-driving cells in cancer, immunology and autoimmunity. The company’s proprietary CyTaC (Cytotoxicity Targeting Chimera) platform and drug candidates are designed to unlock antibody-intractable cell surface targets, providing the capability to develop next-generation medicines.

The new capital will be used to leverage and develop the CyTaC platform and drug candidates.

In the announcement of the transaction, Solu Therapeutics co-founder and CEO David Donabedian, Ph.D. said, “We are using the CyTaC platform to develop bifunctional small molecules with one arm binding the extracellular target and the other arm binding a proprietary antibody that can recruit the immune system to kill cancer and other pathogenic cell. The innovative platform and drug candidates were licensed from GSK and have potential applications across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, immunology, and autoimmunity. With the capital from this financing, we plan to advance our lead program in oncology into the clinic within two years and advance several of our other product candidates through pre-clinical development.”

The Gunderson Dettmer deal team was led by Tim Ehrlich and included Tim Kulis, Aditya Perakath, Jasmine Daniel and Joel Diamond. 

Companies
Solu Therapeutics
Longwood 
Sante Ventures