New York investor Apple Tree Partners has paired up with the recipient of a 2018 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" to launch a new Boston-based biotech.
Nereid Therapeutics launched Monday with a $50 million investment from Apple Tree to expand on Clifford Brangwynne’s research. The Princeton University professor has spent more than a decade exploring cellular function and biomolecular condensates — the droplets within cells that can impact the ways in which genes are read and turned on or off. Brangwynne has received several awards for this work, including a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the “genius grant.”
Biogen’s former head of external portfolio innovation Spiros Liras is serving as Nereid’s interim CEO, while Biogen’s former head of R&D, Michael Ehlers, has taken a seat on the startup’s board. Both men currently serve as venture partners at Apple Tree Partners.
Nereid is not the only local drugmaker to delve into this field. Boston’s Dewpoint Therapeutics was co-founded by Anthony Hyman, who researched these cell structures alongside Brangwynne at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany.
Both companies believe the science could have a widespread impact, with Nereid executives calling it a "plug and play approach."
Since launching last year, Dewpoint has signed collaboration deals with Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) and Bayer. Dewpoint has mapped out expansive drug development plans applying its insight into cellular structures to everything from cardiac health to gynecological diseases.
In the near-term, Nereid plans to focus on oncology, neurodegenerative disorders and fibrosis.
“Biomolecular condensates have now been implicated in just about every cellular process, and Nereid will define a way of modulating them for the betterment of human health.” Brangwynne said in a statement.
