Innate intuition

Atlas Venture is re-upping on the hypothesis that the innate immune system, in particular the inflammasome, is not as intractable as many believe. The firm co-led last week's $27 million series A round for IFM Therapeutics Inc., which is developing inflammasome modulators for cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Atlas seeded IFM with $2 million last October because IFM CEO Gary Glick suspected third-party publications were unknowingly showing the druggability of the inflammasome, a family of 20-25 proteins involved in the innate immune response...