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NewNeural is a Naperville, IL-based company in the Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotech sector.
Kezar co-founder Christopher Kirk, Ph.D. began his work on the unique function of the immunoproteasome at Proteolix in 2005, while working on the compound that would become the successful multiple myeloma drug KYPROLIS™ (carfilzomib). As VP of Research at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, which acquired Proteolix in 2009, Christopher led the efforts to develop the first selective inhibitors of the immunoproteasome and designed multiple studies demonstrating their profound immunomodulatory effects. In parallel with this work, Christopher and Kezar co-founder Jack Taunton, Ph.D. collaborated on several research projects involving protein secretion. This collaboration inspired a belief in the strong synergies between protein degradation and protein secretion, two fertile areas for drug discovery with platform potential. In 2014, Christopher and Kezar co-founder John Fowler began developing the business plan for Kezar, acting on a longstanding desire to work together and build a world-class company. In 2015, John and Christopher raised $23M and negotiated a worldwide, exclusive license agreement with Amgen for the Onyx immunoproteasome inhibitor patent estate. Now underway, John and Christopher are excited to leverage their complementary skill sets to build Kezar into a leader in small molecule drug development.
Axsome Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies for the treatment of CNS disorders. Axsome has a balanced portfolio of clinical development stage as well as research stage product candidates. The company is based in New York City.
Istari Oncology, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on novel immuno-oncology and immunotherapy platforms for the treatment of glioblastoma and a wide variety of tumors. The company was founded by Darell Bigner, MD, and Matthias Gromeier, MD, of Duke University Medical Center in 2016. Both are leaders in their respective research fields of virology, immunology, monoclonal development and clinical medicine, particularly in the treatment of brain tumors.
Frontier Medicines is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing breakthrough medicines that redefine the course of debilitating diseases. According to the American Cancer Society, 1,762,000 new cancer cases and 607,000 deaths from cancer are expected to occur in the US in 2019. Our focus is developing treatments against important cancer-causing proteins that the biopharma industry hasn`t found a way to treat (or “drug”) with pharmaceutical interventions. After decades of research, this has become one of the most critical challenges in addressing human disease and advancing oncology therapy --central to the research at Frontier Medicines. Frontier Medicines is using chemoproteomics – an innovative approach to chemically interrogate proteins in living systems – to discover and pharmacologically target new binding pockets (or “hotspots”) on proteins, making them accessible to small-molecule drug discovery and development. The company`s proprietary chemoproteomics platform also integrates advanced computational approaches and machine learning to further accelerate the path to drug discovery.