Photys Therapeutics Debuts

Founded by Longwood Fund and Dr. Amit Choudhary of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge-based Photys Therapeutics has launched with $75 million Series A funding. Photyx is advancing phosphorylation inducing chimeric small molecules (PHICS), a proprietary new class of bifunctional medicines that direct and repair protein phosphorylation to treat a range of diseases including cancer, immune, metabolic, and rare diseases.

“Many current chimeric and bifunctional modalities focus on protein degradation, which limits their range of addressable diseases,” said Edward Holson, PhD, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Photys. “Photys expands this functionality, using PHICS to recruit kinases and induce phosphorylation, a key post-translational modification that controls many protein functions…”

“The foundational biology of kinases is well-understood, and decades of screening has yielded potent kinase binders,” said Brian Fenton, Chief Executive Officer. “Our approach builds on this foundation and leverages the diversity of kinase function towards treating cancer and other critical immune, metabolic, and rare diseases.”

“Dr. Choudhary’s transformational research has provided Photys with a roadmap to expand the native function of kinases to treat disease,” said David Steinberg, Chairman and Founding CEO of Photys, and General Partner at Longwood Fund. “We look forward to building on his unique insights to establish a broad pipeline of therapeutics that can potentially enhance and extend the lives of patients.” (Source: Photys Therapeutics Website, 08 September, 2022)