BlackThorn Therapeutics, a South San Francisco, CA-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing targeted treatments for neurobehavioral disorders, closed a $40m Series A financing.
The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners with participation from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., Altitude Life Science Ventures, Mercury Fund, Alexandria Real Estate Equities and an undisclosed crossover fund.
The company intends to use the funds to develop novel, targeted treatments for neurobehavioral disorders.
Led by Mark Corrigan, M.D., executive chairman, BlackThorn is building a pipeline of treatments through its INFORM™ platform, which links brain physiology and its relationship to behavior. With its network of collaborations with academic investigators, the company is developing and deploying a set of technologies that will enable focused, rapid, resource-efficient translational studies for drug development. The lead program will evaluate BTRX-246040, an antagonist of the nociceptin receptor (NOPR), a target linked to multiple neurobehavioral disorders, which is currently entering phase 2 clinical trials.
Other members of BlackThorn’s senior leadership team include:
– Bill Martin, Ph.D., chief scientific officer,
– Annette Madrid, M.D., chief medical officer, and
– Scott Forrest, Ph.D., vice president of operations and corporate development.
They are complemented by a Board of Directors including Dr. Corrigan and Kristina Burow, managing director at ARCH Venture Partners, John MacPhee, currently chief executive officer of The Jed Foundation and a director at Adamas Pharmaceuticals, and Asish Xavier, Ph.D., from Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc.
The founding scientific team includes Edward Roberts, Ph.D., and Hugh Rosen, M.D., Ph.D..
The scientific advisory board is led by co-chairs Steven Hyman, M.D., director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research and core member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, and Matt State, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and director of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. In addition, Thomas Daniel, M.D., most recently president of research and early development at Celgene Corporation, serves as a senior advisor to the team.
FinSMEs
20/10/2016