Calico is one of the most elusive yet exciting startups currently around. The Google backed outfir is working on all sorts of things ranging from Parkinson’s disease to even cancer. The main focus of the company is to take upon issues caused by aging and if possible, reverse their course. The company has announced a brand new partnership with C4 Therapeutics, that will see the two organizations link arms to drive research across the sector.
The duo will together leverage C4T’s expertise in targeted protein degradation. The partnership will then seek to jointly discover and advance small molecule protein degraders as therapeutic agents. These agents will then work to remove certain disease-causing proteins that can cause serious. So basically, the function of these agents will be to recognize cancer causing proteins and destroy them. The partnership will then pursue preclinical research. Calico’s role here will be using the fruits of this research for subsequent clinical development and commercialization.
Speaking on the topic, Hal Barron, R&D chief over at Calico, said:
We know from decades of translational research that it can be incredibly challenging to find effective pharmacologic inhibitors of many of the biologically well-validated targets, particularly in cancer. Through the alternative strategy of specifically targeting such proteins for degradation, we believe we have the opportunity to identify promising new therapeutics in cancer and in other diseases as well.
We are thrilled to have Calico as partners in pioneering novel therapeutics based on targeted protein degradation. Calico’s leadership team has a long record of innovation and our combined efforts are aimed at bringing forward new options for patients affected by devastating diseases such as cancer.
added Andrew Phillips, President and Chief Scientific Officer of C4 Therapeutics.
Calico is not new to partnerships. The Google funded company has embarked into multiple similar collaborations to achieve its goals, which to be honest, are not particularly well known but have to do with increasing the longetivity of the human body. The acronym Calico stands for California Life Company and the firm was founded on September 18, 2013 by Google and Arthur D. Levinson to fight diseases caused by aging.
