Led By Ex-Sanofi Exec, Mysterious Ribon Therapeutics Eyes a New Type of Cancer Drug
March 3, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BOSTON – Ribon Therapeutics is a stealthy and privately-held startup focused on developing therapeutics targeting poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARPs) for cancer. But other than that, little is known about the company that was founded in 2015.
Its website contains no information, other than the location of its offices in Lexington, Mass. However, a report by Xconomy has revealed a bit more information about the fledgling company. Ribon was founded by Paul Chang, a former professor at MIT, Lee Kraus of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Tim Mitchison of Harvard Medical School. Ribon has also received financing of $10 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Xconomy said. The company is looking to raise another $11 million, according to the filing.
The SEC filing also shows Ribon is led by Victoria Richon, the fledgling company’s president and chief scientific officer. Richon formerly served for the past three years as vice president of discovery and preclinical research in oncology at Sanofi , according to her Linkedin profile.
In addition to Richon’s leadership, the filing also disclosed some of the company’s investors, which includes representatives from several venture capital firms such as U.S. Venture Partners, California-based The Column Group and Osage University Partners.
Ribon’s research will focus on PARPs, which are enzymes that allow cells to respond to DNA damage and repair themselves. DNA can become damaged by a number of things, including some anti-cancer drugs. PARP inhibitors are a targeted therapy that may help keep cancer cells from repairing their damaged DNA, causing them to die, according to the National Cancer Institute. PARP-inhibitors have become popular tools in oncology research. In 2014, AstraZeneca won approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Lynparza, the first PARP-inhibitor, approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Lynparza is intended for women with heavily pretreated ovarian cancer that is associated with defective BRCA genes. Xconomy reported AstraZeneca is also looking to develop Lynparza for other cancer treatments, including prostate, breast and pancreatic cancers. Last year Colorado-based Clovis Oncology reported positive Phase II results from two studies in ovarian cancer with the drug rucaparib, a PARP inhibitor. In the mid-stage trial, rucaparib showed an 82 percent positive response rate in patients with BRCA ovarian cancer. Clovis is looking to file for rucaparib’s approval with the FDA later this year.
Ribon’s website does not indicate how the company plans to advance PARP-inhibitor research, but while at MIT that was an area of focus for Chang’s research, Xconomy noted.