Third Rock starts a Revolution

Revolution Medicines Inc. (Redwood City, Calif.) raised $45 million in a series A round from lone investor Third Rock Ventures. The start-up uses a synthetic platform to discover and develop drugs based on natural products.

Revolution President and CEO Mark Goldsmith, a Third Rock partner, said the platform allows for iterative assembly of complex molecules from smaller subunits, circumventing the need to develop individual synthetic routes for different chemical scaffolds. ...