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Drug discovery company raises $11.2 million (Seed+)

Talus Bioscience, a drug discovery company founded by a team of leading scientists in proteomics, biochemistry and machine learning, announced it has raised $11.2 million in venture capital. The Seed+ round was led by Two Bear Capital, with participation from WRF Capital, NFX, YC Continuity Fund, Funders Club VC and BoxOne Ventures.

These funds will be invested to advance Talus Bio's therapeutic programs, including brachyuria-related cancers and a untreatable transcription factor associated with prostate cancer, and will accelerate the expansion of the Company's proprietary Multiplexed Assays for the Rational Modulation Of Transcription Factors (MARMOT) platform.

MARMOT uses new AI models trained on Talus Bio's transcription factor activity dataset, currently the world's largest. And MARMOT enables scientists to quickly identify optimal candidates from billions of compounds, replacing time-consuming high-throughput screens that have so far failed for transcription factors and are limited to millions of compounds. Through MARMOT, machine learning models discover and optimize modulators for any transcription factor target, enabling a massive acceleration of discovery screening in living, unaltered human cells where the targets fold and function properly.

Transcription factors are proteins that regulate the genome by binding to DNA and controlling which genes are turned on or off at any given time. And when they don't work properly, they often cause cancer and other disease processes such as diabetes, inflammatory diseases, fibrosis and neurological disorders.

To date, including this latest round, Talus Bio has received six non-dilutive grants totaling over $7.3 million, as well as $19.7 million in venture capital.

J. Seth Strattan, PhD, General Partner at Two Bear Capital, will also receive a seat on Talus Bio’s board of directors in connection with the financing.

KEY QUOTES:

“This new funding from our exceptional partners validates and supports our work in developing the first AI model to discover and optimize new modulators of any transcription factor. With our growing team of leading data scientists, we can leverage tens of millions of data points generated by the MARMOT platform to predict the best places to look for new molecules to block disease-causing transcription factors. We are still in the early stages as we seek new partners to help us further develop the dozens of promising transcription factor candidates we have discovered to date.”

  • Talus Bioscience CEO and Co-Founder Alex Federation, PhD

“Talus Bio's platform leverages advances in chemistry, proteomics and computational biology to generate a dataset not previously possible. The breadth, completeness and efficiency with which they can target transcription factors gives their AI approach a distinct advantage and they have already generated a solid list of hits against attractive drug targets. We are very excited to be working with this exceptional team as they seek both partnerships and internal development of these exciting programs that have the potential to redefine the treatment of complex diseases and improve outcomes for patients worldwide.”

• ⁃ Avery Sonnenberg, PhD, Principal at lead investor Two Bear Capital

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