Skyhawk’s $80M Celgene deal expands remit to autoimmune
In Skyhawk’s fifth deal of the year, the company is moving into a new therapeutic area and adding $80 million to its cash reserve. Skyhawk partnered with Celgene to discover and develop small molecules for autoimmune disease and cancer against hard-to-drug targets that have been clinically validated, or genetically associated with a disease.
Skyhawk Therapeutics Inc. uses its SkySTAR platform to discover and develop small molecules capable of modulating RNA splicing within the spliceosome, dictating which exons are included in the final mRNA transcript and offering drug developers a mechanism to control protein expression at the level of mRNA. The therapeutic approach can be applied broadly to indications where attempts at drugging a target at the protein level have been unsuccessful (see “Splice Time”)...