DURHAM – There’s a new biotechnology startup in Durham, and it plans to focus on researching, then developing, therapeutics for the treatment of cancers.
The startup, Lamassu Bio, is founded by Dr. Gabi Hanna, who is also the firm’s CEO and the executive director at the Duke Preclinical Translational Research Unit, which is part of the Duke University School of Medicine.
Hanna co-founded Lamassu Pharma, LLC in 2018, spinning out the company from academia.
In a statement, Hanna noted that this venture was built conservatively, with a single asset in mind, RABI-767. That asset is “a novel therapeutic for the treatment of severe acute pancreatitis first discovered at the Mayo Clinic,” the statement notes, and it advanced through preclinical trials by 2021.
Lamassu Pharma raised $2.7 million from 19 investors in 2020.
Durham startup targeting pancreatitis raises $2.7M from 19 investors
New proof
According to the company, this success yielded “the proof” needed to build a new company that could address multiple projects and collaborate with multiple partners simultaneously.
“Every day there are diseases with unmet needs, like pancreatic cancer, that cause the deaths of thousands of patients,” said Hanna in the statement. “The traditional drug approval timeline in the United States, and elsewhere throughout the world, takes so long that most patients with these severe diseases will not live long enough to benefit from drugs currently in development.”
That’s where Hanna wants the new company to focus: accelerating the time it takes.
“Our goal is to serve these unmet needs by helping accelerate the time it takes drugs for unmet needs to work through the pipeline—via a combination of innovative science and entrepreneurship centered on patient benefits—and into the hands of patients, where they do the most good,” explained Hanna.
The company expects to partner, as well. “The birth of Lamassu Bio will give us the opportunity to repeat this success many times over both within and outside of the United States, exponentially increasing the number of patients we can help,” said Hanna.
