FoRx Therapeutics discloses its Board with Dr Colin Goddard as Executive Chairman and announces €10m seed financing led by M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Omega Funds

– SWITZERLAND, Basel –  FoRx Therapeutics AG, the biotechnology company developing a new generation of cancer drugs focusing on novel DNA Replication Stress (DRS) pathways, today announced the closing of a EUR 10 million seed financing led by M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Omega Funds.
The company also announced the appointment of Colin Goddard as Executive Chairman.
Pfizer Ventures, the venture capital arm of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and LSP (Life Sciences Partners) also joined the seed financing.
“I am excited to join the Board of FoRx as we embark upon this new approach for therapeutic intervention in cancer. With strong scientific foundations and a high-quality investor syndicate, the Company has the potential to materially improve the options available to oncologists around the world,” said Executive Chairman, Dr. Colin Goddard.

Therese Maria Liechtenstein from M Ventures, Florian Muellershausen from Novartis Venture Fund, Vincent Ossipow from Omega Funds, Vincent Brichard from LSP, and Denis Patrick from Pfizer Ventures joined the FoRx board along with Professor Thanos Halazonetis.

Andreas Goutopoulos, current Senior Scientific Director at EMD Serono and Chief Scientific Officer at Metabomed, is supporting FoRx Therapeutics as interim CEO, as part of his role as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at M Ventures.

FoRx is developing a new generation of drugs against a unique target class for the treatment of cancer. The company’s scientific foundations are built on the pioneering work of Professor Thanos Halazonetis, from the University of Geneva. Professor Halazonetis discovered novel DNA repair pathways, such as Break Induced Replication (BIR) that enable cancer cells to overcome DNA Replication Stress, a prevalent feature in human cancers but absent in normal, healthy cells. These repair pathways constitute a vulnerability that can be exploited for targeted intervention using synthetic lethality. The work of Professor Halazonetis describing oncogene-induced replication stress has been published in renowned scientific journals including Nature . The Company’s validated BIR targets furthermore appear to have the potential for both therapy and maintenance treatment as shown in preclinical knock-out models.

About Dr. Colin Goddard

Goddard has a long track record of leadership and success in the industry. He works as an investor and board member in a number of early-stage and public biotechnology companies, leveraging over 30 years of experience in the industry. He is Chairman of Mission Therapeutics and BlinkBio. He was previously a non-executive director of Endocyte Inc. which was acquired by Novartis in 2018 for US$ 2.1 billion. From October 1998 until its US$4 billion acquisition by Astellas Pharmaceuticals Inc. in June of 2010, Dr. Goddard was CEO of OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Dr. Goddard holds a PhD in Cancer Pharmacology.

About FoRx Therapeutics

FoRx Therapeutics, was founded in the fall of 2019, is a biotechnology company developing a new generation of cancer drugs focusing on novel DNA Replication Stress pathways activated in cancer. Drawing on discoveries by Thanos Halazonetis and Dr. Sotirios Sotiriou, FoRx was co-founded in 2019 with M Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Omega Funds along with Pfizer Ventures, the venture capital arm of Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) and LSP (Life Sciences Partners).

For more information, visit www.forxtherapeutics.com

About M Ventures

M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital arm of Merck. Its mandate is to invest in innovative technologies and products with the potential to significantly impact the company’s core business areas. From its headquarters in Amsterdam and offices in the US and Israel, M Ventures invests globally in transformational ideas driven by great entrepreneurs. M Ventures takes an active role in its portfolio companies and teams up with entrepreneurs and co-investors to translate innovation towards commercial success. M Ventures has a significant focus on early stage investing and company creation including the creation of spin-offs to leverage the company’s science and technology base.

For more information, visit www.m-ventures.com.

About the Novartis Venture Fund

Novartis Venture Fund is a financially driven corporate life science venture fund whose purpose is to foster innovation, drive significant patient benefit and generate superior returns by creating and investing in innovative life science companies at various stages of their development.

For more information, go to www.nvfund.com.

About Omega Funds

Founded in 2004, Omega Funds is a leading international investment firm that creates and invests in life sciences companies that target our world’s most urgent medical needs. Omega focuses on identifying and supporting companies through value inflection points across the full arc of innovation, from company formation through clinical milestones and commercial adoption. Omega Funds’ portfolio companies have brought 37 products to market in multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, rare diseases, precision medicine and others.

For more,  visit www.omegafunds.com

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