A University of Dundee spin-out has announced a multi-million pound deal to develop first-in-class cancer therapeutics that harness the body’s natural processes to selectively degrade and remove disease causing proteins.
Amphista Therapeutics has announced the closing of a $7.5 million Series A funding round.
Investors include the Scottish Investment Bank, the Scottish Growth Scheme, European Investment Fund and US-based life sciences BioMotiv.
Amphista’s scientific founder Professor Alessio Ciulli, who is based at the University of Dundee, is an expert in the field of targeted protein degradation (TPD).
Amphista’s TPD small molecules instruct the cell to degrade the target directly rather than activating or inhibiting the target protein function.
As protein-protein interactions are involved in disease progression, removing the target protein provides a clear therapeutic advantage over simple inhibition.
Mr Ciulli said: “Highly specific TPD is a transformative new modality for tackling previously undruggable targets with high therapeutic value.”
The firm’s chief executive Nicola Thompson said the funding would allow the firm to “progress our oncology pipeline to the clinic”.
