BioCentury
ARTICLE | Financial News

Cancer newco Sapience raises $22.5M

July 13, 2016 12:47 AM UTC

Sapience Therapeutics Inc. (Scarsdale, N.Y.) raised $22.5 million in an untranched series A round led by Eshelman Ventures. Celgene Corp. (NASDAQ:CELG), TaiAn Technologies and Healthlink Capital also participated.

Sapience's lead program, ST-36, is a preclinical peptide-based therapeutic that inhibits activating transcription factor 5 ( ATF5). Founder, President and CEO Barry Kappel told BioCentury the transcription factor "should not be active in differentiated cells, but seems to be turned on in a number of cancers." According to the company, blocking ATF5 causes cancer cells to undergo apoptosis and may make them more sensitive to radiation. ...