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A Peninsula startup formed by three University of California scientists — including the husband of Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna — and backed by a venture capital firm backing a number of young companies has hired a seasoned Bay Area biotech executive as president and CEO.
Initial Therapeutics Inc., a 25-person South San Francisco company looking to develop a small-molecule killer of pathogenic proteins, said Thursday it hired Peter DiLaura to help push forward the company's first programs. DiLaura most recently was chief business and strategy officer at Sonoma Biotherapeutics Inc. but also has been a entrepreneur in residence at Third Rock Ventures and was CEO of microbiome therapeutics company Second Genome Inc.
Initial is focused on what it calls STOPS — selective termination of protein synthesis — to trip the translation of proteins that play a role in cancer and other diseases. The beauty of Initial's approach, its leaders say, is that its potential small-molecule drugs would disrupt disease processes in their earliest — or "initial" (wink, wink) — stages.
Initial's potential drugs don't require small binding pockets in the proteins they target because the company is zeroing in on linear expression of the proteins as they travel to the exit tunnel of a ribosome, the protein-making factory of cells. Initial's process would allow its drugs to reach so-called undruggable targets and cut off mutant proteins at the metaphorical knees.
Protein degradation or stabilizers — two examples of other biotech companies' programs — require a small-molecule binding site. What's more, they typically go after mature proteins already spit out of the ribosome.
Initial isn't disclosing its timeline for reaching clinical trials or a specific disease focus.
The company was founded by Jamie H.D. Cate, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley, along with Kevan Shokat, a well-known UCSF professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology and UC Berkeley chemistry professor, UC Irvine pharmaceutical sciences professor Brian Paegel and Apple Tree Partners.
Cate, the husband of 2020 Nobel prize winner Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley, in 2016 cofounded East Bay bioengineering company Sugarlogix. In the Cate-Doudna household, company creation has been more Doudna's thing, including Caribou Biosciences Inc. of Berkeley, Mammoth Biosciences of Brisbane and Scribe Therapeutics of Alameda, in addition to her Innovative Genomics Institute's HS Chau Women in Enterprising Science Program at UC Berkeley.
It was Cate's lab that did early structural biology work showing how protein synthesis could be selectively disrupted with a small molecule in the ribosome. The Paegel lab supplied miniaturized microfluidics technology — showing how small amounts of liquid flow through small channels — to help Initial construct a ribosome assay that screened potential drugs.
Apple Tree has been one of the most active VC firms during biotech's protracted downturn. While Wall Street has largely frozen out life sciences companies, and VC decision makers have extended their review processes, Apple Tree companies have emerged with potential new approaches to tackling diseases. Apple Tree's companies have included potential Parkinson's disease drug developer Nine Square Therapeutics of South San Francisco, pulsed electrical field therapies company Galvanize Therapeutics Inc. of San Carlos, cancer-focused Aulos Bioscience of Larkspur and San Francisco's Deep Apple Therapeutics.
Apple Tree last spring invested $75 million in a Series A round backing Initial, with Apple Tree venture partner Spiros Liras serving as founding CEO.
