Kojin launches to exploit ferroptosis-vulnerable cancer cell state

Kojin, which launched Wednesday with a $60 million series A led by Polaris Partners, Newpath Partners and Cathay Health, is pursuing drug development with an approach based on cell state biology, starting with ferroptosis sensitivity in cancer.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company was co-founded in 2020 by Stuart Schreiber, Benjamin Cravatt, Stephanie Dougan and Vasanthi Viswanathan. Schreiber is a professor and Harvard University and co-founder of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cravatt is a professor at The Scripps Research Institute; Dougan is an assistant professor at Harvard and a Dana-Farber investigator; and Viswanathan, who was a postdoc in Schreiber’s lab, is Kojin’s head of discovery biology...