Cytura Therapeutics to target genomic instability in cancer

Cytura Therapeutics has successfully closed a Seed financing round. The funding is provided by a syndicate led by Thuja Capital  Healthcare (Seed) Fund II and includes BOM Brabant Ventures, the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) – KU Leuven and the Gemma Frisius Fund. Cytura Therapeutics will use the new funding to advance its first proprietary small molecule program and to further expand their pipeline of new disruptive drugs, targeting genomic instability.

The company will be based at the Pivot Park Life Science Campus in Oss and collaborate with the Amsterdam UMC and the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) of the KU Leuven. Genomic instability is a major problem in cancer progression and therapy resistance. By targeting genome instability this approach could be applied both as a stand-alone as in combinations therapy. On the latter, there is a large group of patients who will at first respond to the applied therapy and later on become resistant during treatment.

Ad van Gorp, co-founder of Cytura Therapeutics comments: “One of the biggest issues in cancer treatment is that the disease has the ability to change its nature over time caused by the increasing genomic instability. Cytura’s R&D efforts are focused on the development of small molecules that will slow down or stop this genomic instability. I am committed to find this medicine which could lead to real advancements in the fight against cancer.”

Management and shareholders

Cytura Therapeutics is founded by Dr Ad van Gorp, former CEO of Dutch Lead Pharma, the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) of the KU Leuven and Amsterdam UMC. In close collaboration with both organizations, Cytura Therapeutics aspires to advance it innovative first-in-class therapies targeting genomic instability of cancers.

Source: press release