Ligon Discovery, Inc., which uses proprietary small molecule microarray technology to find drugs against high-value targets, today announced that it has raised $1M in seed financing led by incTANK Ventures. The company will use the capital to complete its initial discovery campaign that will screen over 100 high-value disease protein targets. With this investment, incTANK Ventures General Partner Christian Bailey joins the board.
Patrick Kleyn PhD, Angela Koehler PhD and Benjamin Ebert MD PhD founded Ligon Discovery with an exclusive license to technology invented at Harvard University and already successfully used to find novel drug compounds at the Broad Institute.
Christian Bailey, General Partner at incTANK Ventures, commented, "Ligon represents a rare combination: although it is an early-stage company, its patented technology has already chalked up some significant drug discovery successes which big pharma companies are now pursuing."
"Ligon's technology has already been used to discover drug compounds against high value targets including protein kinases, histone deacetylases, extracellular growth factors, and transcription factors," said Patrick Kleyn, Ligon's CEO and co-founder. He added, "These compounds were subsequently validated by follow-up assays and results have been published in journals such as Nature, Nature Chemical Biology, and the Journal of the American Chemical Society."
"Ligon is a terrific example of how research at one of Massachusetts' leading academic institutions can be commercialized, leading to new jobs and new therapies that help patients," said Dr. Susan Windham-Bannister, President & CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the agency charged with implementing the state's ten-year, $1 billion Life Sciences Initiative. "Translating research from our world-class colleges and universities into early stage companies and life-saving products is what makes Massachusetts the hub for innovation in the life sciences."
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