Nirogy Raises $16.5 Million to Focus on Transporter Proteins
Summary
“Cellular transporters, which are central to many aspects of cell biology and dysregulated in myriad diseases, have not been effectively targeted due to the complex structures of SLCTs,” said Vincent Sandanayaka, founder, president and chief executive officer of Nirogy. “Our team’s strength in computational modeling, medicinal chemistry and cancer biology has enabled us to overcome the challenge of drugging these critical untapped targets. Cancer cells utilize large amounts of glucose, while excreting a huge additional quantity of lactic acid into the tumor microenvironment by way of lactate transporters. Last Friday, January 23, Nirogy announced it was awarded a $2 million NIH/NCI SBIR grant to develop dual monocarboxylate transport inhibitors (dMCTi) for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). dMCTi blocks lactate excretion to the tumor microenvironment, and in preliminary research, has shown it has potent activity against multiple TNBC cell lines.