Startup Halda raises $126M to advance a new type of targeted cancer therapy
Halda Therapeutics, a startup using new cancer-fighting technology developed by serial biotechnology entrepreneur Craig Crews, has raised $126 million in new funding to advance experimental drugs into human testing for prostate and breast cancers. The Series B round extension raises the total to $202 million. Halda has advocated for a medication called RIPTAC, which stimulates a protein interaction that kills tumor cells by using a dual-acting small molecule medicine. The RIPTAC method, which was developed at Crews' laboratories at Yale University, expands on research that included "glueing" proteins within tumor cells to mark those cells for elimination.
The earlier strategy, known as "protein degradation," was proposed by Lycia Therapeutics, Arvinas, and Kymera Therapeutics, among other firms. With the use of Halda's RIPTAC technology, a protein unique to cancer is bound to another protein that is necessary for cell function; this contact stops the vital function and causes cell death. With this money, Halda hopes to bring code-named HLD 0915 an investigational medication for prostate cancer to the clinic by the first half of 2025. Early in 2023, the business showed evidence from mouse trials; later this month, more data was published in a scholarly publication.
