Golden Pine licenses technology to launch fourth drug startup company
Golden Pine Ventures is adding another company with promising life science technology to its growing portfolio of startups.
The latest is Catena Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery firm that is being built around so-called small molecules that could prove to be an anti-cancer drug.
Ian Mehr of Golden Pine is acting as president of Catena, which remains a “virtual” firm with no employees. The technology is being licensed from the University of Virginia, where the firm’s scientific founders remain as professors.
Catena means “chain” in Latin, and Catena’s technology is based on linked molecules.
Financial terms of the company’s launch were not disclosed. Golden Pine will provide seed development funding until Catena is advanced enough to secure funding from larger investors, Mehr told Local Tech Wire.
“We will move as fast as we can possibly move,” Mehr said. He’s aiming for some $5 million in additional investment over the next year to 18 months.
Kevin Lynch and Timothy Macdonald identified and patented technology around the potential cancer antagonists called anti-angiogenic G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) compounds.
“Worldwide, about 25 million people are living with cancer, and about six million will die each year,” Mehr said. “In 2006, the NIH estimated the total cost of U.S. cancer burden at $210 billion, and it remains the second-leading cause of death in the United States. More effective anti-cancer therapies are desperately needed. The compounds discovered by Dr. Lynch and Dr. Macdonald have the potential to become drugs to help fill this unmet medical need by attacking the proven anti-cancer mechanism of angiogenesis in a novel way.”
Lynch and Macdonald will work with Catena as vice presidents but remain on the Virginia faculty. They also will sit on the firm’s board.
Macdonald is a professor of chemistry and pharmacology and a former chairman of chemistry at the University of Virginia. Lynch is a professor of pharmacology, biochemistry and molecular genetics.
Golden Pine, which launched in 2004, has already launched Exigent Pharmaceuticals, Kylin Therapeutics and Pique Therapeutics. A fifth firm is in “stealth mode” and another is “in the hopper,” according to Mehr.
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