Gene control play Syros raises $40M

Syros Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Watertown, Mass.) raised $40 million in a venture round led by Deerfield Management. Fellow new investor Casdin Capital also participated, as did existing investors Fidelity, WuXi Healthcare Ventures, Polaris Partners, Redmile Group, Aisling Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments.

Syros is creating maps of regulatory DNA regions called super-enhancers -- master switches responsible for maintaining cell identity -- to identify novel targets. The maps are generated by comparing which super-enhancers are active in healthy cells vs. diseased cells. The company is also developing a pipeline of compounds designed to control genes that are dysregulated in diseased cells to treat cancer and other diseases. ...