Taiga Biotechnologies: On the Radar

I am excited to learn about Taiga Biotechnologies now residing at the Colorado Science + Technology Park @ Fitzsimons. Though no news to report this is an effort to break down what they have and what they are doing.

Taiga was founded to develop novel approaches for the treatment hematological diseases; including cancers, immunodeficiencies and autoimmune conditions, a triangulated approach. Their model combines novel breakthroughs in cellular, biologic and small molecule approaches to treat and manage these diseases.

Picks. Shovels. And products. The Taiga platform enables screens for small molecule discovery and validation. Three small molecule candidates are in their pipeline for acute myelogenous Leukemia and are moving towards IND enabling studies. The proprietary screening platform allows Taiga to perform differential screens to identify novel agents that will specifically kill leukemic stem cells, but spare normal blood stem cells.

Stem cell therapeutics. Taiga continues to develop and test their long-term hematopoietic stem cells which have demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of a variety of cancers in animal models. Poised to transition to the clinic, the lead indications for this program include acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, and chronic myeloid leukemia.

And biologics too. Taiga has also developed an innovative method for rapidly generating monoclonal antibodies for treating cancer and infectious disease. What is unique here is that Tiaga’s monoclonal Antibodies can be generated 3-4X faster than current production technologies. Development of fully humanized antibodies for the treatment of disease has become a primary focus of Taiga, though uncertain as to the status of this program.

I encourage the founders Brian Turner, Ph.D., Yosef Refaeli, Ph.D. and John Cambier, Ph.D. from the University Colorado Health Science Center and the National Jewish Medical Research Center to right the ship if the post missed the mark be either leaving a comment and/or shooting me an email, arubenstein [at] rnaventures [dot] com.

***Update*** Be sure to get your vote in for the CLSDF Readers Company of the Year Award. GlobeImmune continues to add to its commanding lead. Voting ends on 31 January.

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