Boston biotech Kojin Therapeutics is closing its doors, citing four funding challenges and a few valuable lessons learned.
The cancer- and autoimmune-focused company will wind down operations over the next few months, according to a LinkedIn status from the business posted on Feb. 13. The biotech had hoped to use iron-dependent cell death, also known as ferroptosis, to treat drug-resistant cancer and other conditions.
Securing sufficient funding to advance Kojin’s small molecules into investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies and clinical trials proved “difficult to achieve,” the Kojin post reads.
This difficulty was driven by four related challenges, according to Kojin, the first being “a lack of current investor interest in financing pre-clinical therapeutic companies, especially based on novel biology and for cancer.”
The biotech also pointed to a “lack of support or engagement by four of our five largest initial investors (generally for fund-specific reasons).”
Launched in 2021, the biotech raised a $60 million series A with backing from Polaris Partners, Newpath Partners, Cathay Health, Leaps by Bayer, AbbVie, Eventide Asset Management, Alexandria, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Binney Street Capital and several family offices.
The biotech did not announce any further fundraises after that.
When Kojin debuted, Polaris’ Amir Nashat took the helm as acting CEO, while former Biogen vet Susan Langer stepped on as acting president. Later, in early 2024, ARIAD Pharmaceuticals founder Harvey Berger, M.D., took the top spot as CEO.
Now, the biotech is saying a “lack of meaningful drug-discovery expertise or progress during the company’s first 2.5 years” also contributed to its demise, plus the fact that clinical proof-of-concept data wasn’t anticipated for at least another two years.
“Since last year, with a new leadership team in place, we have made striking progress in developing first-in-class, small molecule, ferroptosis inducers for potential use in patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases,” the Kojin post reads.
Replying to a post of several questions in the comments section, Kojin wrote about several “valuable lessons to be learned” from the upcoming closure.
“First, I believe the company would have thrived if it had made changes to leadership a year earlier and refocused the available funds and staff in 2022/23 as opposed to 2024 when the new team stepped in,” the business posted. The post also said that “scientific rigor, experience and focus are needed” to generate a drug candidate (DC) and that “fiscal responsibility is essential.”
“Too much money was spent in the company’s early days long before it had a DC in sight,” the Kojin post concludes. Finally, the biotech reminded others to always save money in case of changes in the financing climate.