Raze Therapeutics

The company's central business was the discovery and development of a new class of oncology therapeutics. Raze's strategy revolved around targeting mitochondrial one-carbon (1C) metabolism, a set of pathways essential for the rapid accumulation of biomass required for tumor growth and survival. This approach was considered a new frontier in cancer treatment, as these specific pathways were previously underappreciated and not explicitly targeted for drug development. The company's proprietary drug discovery platform was designed to create therapeutics that could selectively starve cancer cells of the precursors needed for their growth, aiming to treat both solid and hematologic cancers. The business model involved leveraging its platform to build a pipeline of therapeutic candidates, with the potential for future partnerships.

In October 2014, Raze Therapeutics launched publicly with a significant $24 million Series A financing round. The funding was intended to advance the development of its novel therapeutics. Key investors in this round included Atlas Venture, MPM Capital Management, MS Ventures, Partners Innovation Fund, Astellas Venture Management, and Novartis. Despite its promising start and the notable assembly of scientific and financial backing, the company ultimately ceased operations. It was shut down at the end of 2015, having been in an incubation phase at Atlas Venture. An Atlas partner stated that while the company made intriguing progress, the underlying biology of cancer metabolism proved to be too complex to justify further investment. The company's scientific assets were returned to academia for additional exploration.