ACCESSWIRE
19 Sep 2023, 21:44 GMT+10
LEXINGTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 19, 2023 / Hyku Biosciences, Inc. (Hyku) today announced its launch with $56 million in seed financing to develop precision covalent medicines in oncology. Hyku is deploying an innovative chemoproteomics platform that selectively disarms disease-causing proteins by covalently targeting ligandable amino acids such as histidines, tyrosines or lysines. Hyku was incubated by RAVen, RA Capital Management's company creation engine, and is based on groundbreaking chemoproteomics research at the University of Virginia by its scientific founder, Dr. Ku-Lung (Ken) Hsu. Dr. Hsu is a recipient of The Mark Foundation's Emerging Leader Award and currently The Stephen F. and Fay Evans Martin Endowed Associate Professor of Chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin.
'Hyku was created with a singular focus to improve patient lives using the power of covalent medicines. Hyku's innovative and unique platform integrates chemoproteomics, proprietary chemistry and bespoke computational and machine-learning algorithms to target critically important amino acids such as histidines, tyrosines and lysines to expand the druggable proteome. We are proud to have a team of accomplished scientists led by our CSO, Mark Mulvihill, PhD, to achieve Hyku's vision.' said Milind Deshpande, Ph.D., Founder, Acting CEO of Hyku and Venture Partner at RA Capital Management.
'Recent progress in covalent medicine has focused largely on targeting cysteines - Hyku builds on that progress, but now targeting proteins and sites only accessible with non-cysteine covalent chemistry,' said Laura Tadvalkar, Ph.D., Managing Director at RA Capital Management and Hyku Board member. 'We are proud to see the progress Hyku has made since its inception.'
'We believe that precision covalent medicines provide a promising approach to address current and emerging challenges in oncology. Hyku's in-house chemoproteomics platform allows the team to make rapid progress across a range of pipeline programs - both internal and potentially with partners in the future. We look forward to working with the Hyku team and support their bold vision,' said Matthias Van Woensel, Ph.D., Partner at Droia Ventures and Hyku Board member.
About Hyku Biosciences
Hyku Biosciences is a biotechnology company, based in the greater Boston area, building the leading covalent medicines discovery platform to inhibit disease targets which are challenging to address with conventional approaches. Hyku's drug discovery engine is based on its proprietary platform technologies, which identifies histidine, tyrosine and lysine based binding pockets and enables rational drug design for therapeutic development. The platform pioneered by Hyku has the potential to fundamentally expand the scope of small molecule drug discovery, greatly increase druggability across many target classes, and bring significant therapeutic benefits to patients via novel medicines. For more information, visit http://www.hykubiosciences.com
Contact:
SOURCE: Hyku Biosciences, Inc.
Get a daily dose of Hawaii Telegraph news through our daily email, its complimentary and keeps you fully up to date with world and business news as well.
Publish news of your business, community or sports group, personnel appointments, major event and more by submitting a news release to Hawaii Telegraph.
More InformationSAN FRANCISCO, California: To resolve a pending litigation with the Oregon affiliate of the International Container Terminal Services Inc (ICTSI), ...
PANAMA CITY, Panama: On September 30, the Panama Canal said that due to a drought that has reduced the supply ...
TRIPOLI, Libya: Italy and Libya resumed commercial flights for the first time in ten years on September 30, with flight ...
SAINT GEORGE, Maine: A fire destroyed several waterfront buildings in Maine on September 29, including an art gallery with several ...
JAKARTA, Indonesia - According to Asian diplomats and the Philippines' president, Southeast Asian leaders have decided that Myanmar will not ...
NEW LONDON, Connecticut: Video footage taken deep in the Pacific Ocean provided the first detailed view of three World War ...
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - U.S. stocks tumbled on Tuesday as interest rates on 10 and 30-year Treasury yields approached ...
DUBLIN, Ireland: The chief medical officer has issued a stark warning regarding the alarming levels of cannabis consumption in Ireland, ...
OAKLAND, California: As their current contract expires and their unions prepare to strike, Kaiser Permanente workers' representatives said, on September ...
FRANKFURT, Germany: Inflation in the eurozone hit a two-year low in September, signaling that the European Central Bank's (ECB) strategy ...
BEIJING, China: Official statistics released on the weekend showed that in September, Chinese factory activity expanded for the first time ...
NEW YORK, New York - The Nasdaq defied a general sell-off on U.S. equity markets Monday, as the new quarter ...