Booster Therapeutics has launched with $15 million in seed financing and a mission to take on the current crop of targeted protein degraders.
The Berlin-based biotech is working on a new class of proteasome activators that it hopes will achieve wider degradation of harmful proteins than existing protein degraders. Its programs will initially target conditions associated with impaired proteasome function such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
Novo Holdings—the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk—led Booster’s seed financing round along with Apollo Health Ventures, which co-founded the company. Novo Holdings will play a “central role” in Booster’s next phase of growth, the Danish fund manager explained in an Oct. 10 release.
As well as offering “hands-on operational expertise, strategic guidance and helping the company access a larger network of talent,” Novo Holdings will draw on the expertise and facilities at its SeedLab in Copenhagen.
Protein degraders remain a hot area of biotech R&D, with Germany’s Merck KGaA and U.S.-based Merck & Co. both penning licensing deals with degrader specialist C4 Therapeutics over the past year, while Japan’s Astellas opened a new lab in Massachusetts last month that includes a small-molecule unit focused on targeted protein degradation research.
Booster’s approach is focused on the role of 20S proteasomes in the clearing of dysfunctional proteins. While most protein degradation therapies can only degrade one target protein at a time, 20S proteasomes are able to degrade a range of misfolded or otherwise damaged proteins.
The company's tech comes from Diogo Feleciano, Ph.D., who is now Booster’s chief scientific officer, and the University of California, Irvine’s Darci Trader, Ph.D. The DGRADX platform, which Booster uses to identify new proteasome activator compounds, includes activator screening technology with its basis in the research of Trader, a proteasome expert.
“Proteasome activation offers important advantages over more limited conventional protein degradation approaches and provides a powerful lever to combat the effects of the many types of deviant proteins that can accumulate in cells when proteasome function declines through age or disease,” Feleciano said in a statement. “The implications for solving major degenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, are enormous.”
Booster’s interim chief business officer João Ribas, Ph.D., described proteasome activation as “a truly novel concept because it can potentially transform how we address some of the most multi-factorial diseases.”
“Booster's deep expertise in proteasome biology means it is well positioned to deliver on first-in-class medicines and expand the protein degradation landscape to more comprehensively address protein dysfunction and impact more disease areas," added Ribas, who is also a principal at Novo Holdings’ Seed Investments.