Seattle-based biotech startup Talus Bioscience landed $4.3 million in non-dilutive grants to boost development of its drug discovery platform that seeks compounds that affect gene activity. The startup received $2.3 million from Spokane, Wash.-based Andy Hill Cancer Research Endowment (CARE) Fund. It received an additional $2 million from small business innovation research (SBIR), a U.S. government-funded program.
- Talus is led by CEO Alex Federation, a biochemist and computational biologist, and CTO Lindsay Pino, who has a background in biochemistry and machine learning.
- The startup’s platform enables the discovery of compounds that affect transcription factors, key proteins that interact with DNA and turn genes on and off. Many transcription factors are implicated in cancer, which results from aberrant gene activity, and other diseases.
- The company raised $7 million in venture capital funding led by NFX last year. Founded in 2020, it has received $7.3 million in grant awards.
