Third Rock Ventures LLC, a venture capital firm with offices in Boston that targets health care companies, and the Column Group announced Thursday a $25.1 million Series B financing of Nurix Inc., a San Francisco start-up focused on developing new treatments for cancer and other diseases.
The Series B financing follows a $6.2 million seed financing in 2012 led by the same investors.
Nurix is working with potential therapies that modulate the ubiquitin proteasome system, or UPS. The UPS is a regulatory pathway that directs protein degradation, a function vital to the healthy life of a cell.
“Our understanding of the fundamental biology of the ubiquitin proteasome system and its role in select cancers and other diseases has grown significantly and continues to expand rapidly,” Mark A. Goldsmith, MD, the interim chief executive of Nurix and a partner at Third Rock Ventures, said in a statement. “These advances have enabled Nurix to make breakthrough biological, structural, and chemical discoveries, positioning us to discover and develop small molecules with the potential to make a dramatic difference for patients. By combining a high-resolution molecular understanding of the ubiquitin proteasome system with innovative approaches to modulating its components, Nurix is making important progress in unlocking disease targets that have largely eluded drug discovery efforts.”
Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com.