USA – Forcyte Biotechnologies, a Los Angeles, CA-based tech-enabled drug discovery company targeting diseases of mechanobiology, secured new funding of undisclosed amount.
Backers included Milestone View, Pioneer Fund, Acequia Capital, Y Combinator, Jude Gomila (CEO, Golden), and others. Including public support, this funding brings Forcyte’s total raised to $5.7M for their internal “mechano-therapeutic” pipeline, focusing first on fibrosis.Led by co-founder and CEO Ivan Pushkarsky, PhD., Forcyte has developed a platform that uses both proprietary wet-lab micro-technologies and computer-vision algorithms to quantify the physical forces generated by millions of individual human cells in carefully controlled microenvironments engineered within 384-well plates where single-cells bind to and “squeeze” vast arrays of adhesive micropatterns. The platform has efficiently scaled to routinely screen 10,000 wells per screening day and has, to-date, collected contractility data on >2.4 million cell-drug-timepoint combinations from >360 million individual primary human cells, including smooth muscle cell types, fibroblasts, and other tissue cells.The company, internally and via partnerships, is launching a pipeline of programs targeting mechanically-active disease processes including fibrotic diseases, dystrophies, and hyper- and hypo-responsiveness in organs including the bladder, airway, blood vessels, and uterus. Forcyte has entered into successful collaborations with multiple biopharma companies including an ongoing partnership with an undisclosed leading pharmaceutical company.02/06/2022
