Vivace Therapeutics Raises $40M in Series A and Series B Funding Rounds
Summary
Vivace Therapeutics, a San Mateo, Calif.-based oncology-focused portfolio-based drug discovery and development company, is coming out of stealth with $40m in Series A and B financings.Canaan Partners and WuXi Healthcare Ventures co-led the company’s $15 million Series A in 2015.Led by Sofie Qiao, Ph.D., president and CEO, Vivace is initially concentrating on inhibitors of the Hippo-YAP signaling pathway, which plays a crucial role in cell development, and genetic mutations of the pathway give rise to a variety of cancers.Hippo-Yap pathway expert and Vivace scientific co-founder, Dr. Kun-liang Guan of the University of California, San Diego, recently discovered additional potential immuno-oncology applications by activating the pathway.Discovered in the laboratory of Vivace’s scientific co-founder, Bin Liu, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, these antibodies can achieve super potent inhibition and cellular selectivity of specific targets, creating a superior therapeutic index.