By John George – Senior Reporter,
Philadelphia Business Journal
April 16, 2019
Panorama
Medicine, a Philadelphia life sciences company that is using genomics and
computing to accelerate drug discovery, has raised $3.7 million in a private
stock sale.
“Many
leading pharmas have dedicated extensive resources in genomics and computing to
speed up drug discovery.” said Mingfu Zhu, the co-founder and CEO of
Panorama. “Panorama’s approach is unique in that it leverages the expertise of
our team in RNA (ribonucleic acid) genomics and computational biology.”
Zhu
said the company, which was founded last year, is using its expertise to create
a drug discovery platform that integrates genomics, big data, and computing to
find drugs that can treat diseases caused by errors during RNA
processing.
(Big
data refers to the field of analyzing and systematically extracting information
data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional
data-processing application software. RNA along with DNA, or deoxyribonucleic
acid, are the main information carrying molecules in all living organisms.)
“There
are a lot of ways mistakes can be made that cause a variety of generic
diseases,” Zhu said. “We wanted to develop new ways to develop drugs for those
diseases that makes use of all the genetic data available in the public
domain.”
Zhu
co-founded Panorama with Yi Xing, founding director of the Center for
Computational and Genomic Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia; and
Douglas Black, a professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and
molecular genetics at UCLA.
Zhu and
Xing have known each other for nearly a decade. About two years ago Xing
approached Zhu, previously an executive with two Chinese genomics and gene
sequencing companies, with the idea of building a company together that would
focus on improving how drugs to cure genetic disease are discovered.
The
company’s seed round was led by WI Harper Group, a San Francisco-based venture
capital firm, and also included the ZhenFund and Delian Capital.
“WI
Harper Group invests in cutting-edge technologies and appreciates the power of
big data and artificial intelligence in health care applications,” said Jimmy
Lu, WI Harper’s managing director and Panorama board member. “Panorama is
uniquely positioned to develop an AI-based drug discovery platform focusing on
RNA therapeutics for rare and common diseases.”
Xing
said their plan during the next six to eight months is to add some staff
members, “ramp up” the company's efficiencies in using big data and moving new
drug candidates into animal models for further research.
Panorama,
which has four full-time employees, is currently seeking to add a molecular
biologist and bioinformatics scientists.
The
company decided to be based in the Philadelphia not simply because that is
where Xing was based.
“Philadelphia
in many ways is the epicenter of cell and gene therapy and we wanted to be part
of that,” Zhu said. “It’s easy to recruit here. Our first two hires came from
the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University.”
The
company was founded in the Science Center’s new Cambridge Innovation Center
(CIC).
“I did
a search and did visit other places in the area,” Zhu said, “But I really saw
this site as an emerging biotech hub. This is a place where we think we can
eventually build partnerships. That’s what we were looking for.”
That
comment delighted Abigail Sherburne, sales team lead for CIC Philadelphia.
“We
want to build a community that fosters collaborations,” Sherburne said,
adding the center was designed to allow life sciences and technology companies
to focus on their work and not worry about anything else. “They can plug
in and we take care of the rest."
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2019/04/16/genomics-philadelphia-big-data-panorama-medicine.html?ana=e_me_set3&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpoaVl6TXlNbVl6WTJVMCIsInQiOiJpUlE3dmZaaXhiOEZBQ0NkNEQ0a0tXRkxmMjdONUJXTlwvZnQ3UDlaa291S3J5SlQrak9GRUZVWjZOd3hoSnZxSVZmUTRhdFVETFhidFcrTjlvd242ZE1oVytLQ0hHZVFRckRwZjZWZ3R4RXFGdjdUSU0zSXJNdUo2WUFwakh2UGsifQ%3D%3D
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