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Print Edition StoriesFriday, January 8, 2010
Acetylon adds $2M to first funds
By Mass High Tech staff
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Therapeutics startup Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc. has pulled in $2 million in funding, bringing the total investment in the company to $9.25 million.
The latest funding, from an unnamed private investor, will convert to stock in the next private equity round, Acetylon officials said in a press release. Company officials believe its new Histone deacetylases (HDAC) inhibitors eliminate or lower the potentially life-threatening side effects that other HDAC inhibitors hold in treating multiple myeloma and rheumatoid arthritis, according to a statement. Backers of the investment were not named by Acetylon officials.
Acetylon announced in August that it had secured a $7.25 million Series A round.
In addition to the investment news, Acetylon also noted the hiring of Simon Jones as vice president, biology and preclinical development, and John van Duzer, vice president, chemistry and manufacturing.
Jones joins Acetylon having previously served as vice president of biology and ADMET. His prior roles include working as director of preclinical development at ArQule Inc., senior director of drug discovery at Curis Inc. and senior director of molecular therapeutics and cellular biolody at Creative Biomolecules Inc. Jones earned a Ph.D. in bio-organic chemistry from Kings College, University of London.
Prior to joining Acetylon, van Duzer served as vice president of manufacturing and pharmaceutical sciences at Mersana Therapeutics Inc. He has previously worked as vice president of manufacturing at ActivBiotics Corp. and director of chemistry at Inotek Corp. He earned a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Yale University.
Acetylon’s HDAC inhibitors were developed at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and at Harvard University by scientific co-founders Ken Anderson, Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Jay Bradner, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Ralph Mazitschek, instructor at Harvard Medical School and the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital; and Stuart Schreiber, Morris Loeb professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
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