Foghorn launches with $50M for chromatin remodeling platform

Flagship Pioneering's Flagship VentureLabs launched chromatin remodeling company Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) with a $50 million capital commitment. Foghorn's Gene Traffic Control platform identifies small molecules capable of regulating chromatin remodeling complexes, which determine whether particular genes are physically accessible for transcription and eventually expressed as protein.

Foghorn President and CEO Adrian Gottschalk told BioCentury that the initial focus will be on modulating undisclosed components of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex or its associated transcription factors. The complex is mutated in about 20% of cancers, Gottschalk said...