Startup Gets $45M To Fight Baffling Lung-Scarring Disease
Pliant Therapeutics Inc.'s CEO Dr. Bernard Coulie says the company's founders have discovered a pill that they believe is highly selective in inhibiting a specific protein on a certain cell type that is found to drive fibrosis.
The San Francisco Business Times:
Highly Selective Startup Snags $45M To Take On Deadly Lung Disease
While a handful of companies are targeting a deadly and baffling lung-scarring disease, the CEO of a Redwood City spinout from UCSF believes his company has some key advantages: a well-defined target and a group of scientific founders that are among the best in the world. Pliant Therapeutics Inc. scored $45 million in a Series A round from Third Rock Ventures in its quest to stop — and perhaps even reverse — idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF. The company hopes to push its lead drug into the clinic in 2018. (Leuty, 2/18)