A new biotech startup, Semma Therapeutics, announced that it seeks to fight diabetes via translating technology from the lab of Doug Melton at Harvard to the clinic. Update: Note that the firm was recently acquired by Vertex.
Another major player in cell therapy-based arena for Diabetes is most likely good news for patients.
Quoted in the Boston Globe, there is a good deal of enthusiasm about the potential of this kind of therapeutic approach:
“This would be a huge breakthrough,” said Dr. George L. King, a Harvard Medical School professor and research director at Joslin Diabetes Center. “It could cure diabetes.”
The firm will have to compete with ViaCyte and Betalogics, which could prove challenging given, for example, that ViaCyte already has an ongoing FDA-approved clinical trial. Still Semma has raised more than $40 million, which is a good start, and this capital came from some known bio-investment players:
“Sensing a business opportunity at the juncture of stem cells and diabetes, venture firms MPM Capital, Fidelity Biosciences of Cambridge, and Arch Venture Partners of Chicago are teaming with Minneapolis-based medical technology giant Medtronic plc to back Semma in the company’s first round of financing.”
Two of the leaders are former Melton lab postdoc Felicia Pagliuca, and CEO Robert Millman. Pagliuca was first author on a high-profile Melton lab paper in Cell published just about half a year ago and post-pub reviewed on this blog.
The firm’s website has more information.
Why the name Semma?
I’m not sure.
There is a SEMMA acronym in high-tech:
Sample, Explore, Modify, Model, Assess.
It’ll be exciting to see how Semma performs and more broadly how cell therapy-based approaches to Diabetes evolve. I view Semma coming on the scene as a positive.
semma-names of Doug Melton’s kids…sam and emma. just a guess…
let’s not forget the likes of Orgenesis and PharmaCyte Biotech as well! Very exciting times…nothing beats a healthy dose of competition for keeping things moving forward….