BlackThorn Therapeutics, a clinical-stage, neurobehavioral health
company pioneering next-generation artificial intelligence (AI)
technologies to advance targeted therapeutics, today announced the close
of its $76 million Series B financing. New investors, including Polaris
Partners, Premier Partners, Scripps Research, and Vertex Ventures HC
joined the round, along with existing investors Alexandria Venture
Investments, Altitude Life Science Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners,
Biomatics Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Johnson & Johnson
Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), and Mercury Fund. In connection with the
financing, Brian Chee, a managing partner at Polaris Partners, Lori Hu,
a managing director at Vertex Ventures HC, and Julie Sunderland, a
managing director at Biomatics Capital joined BlackThorn’s board as
directors.
“Making personalized medicine for mental health a reality requires the
ability to gather, integrate and analyze a wide variety of data at
scale,” said Paul Berns, Executive Chair of BlackThorn and a Venture
Partner at ARCH Venture Partners. “BlackThorn has positioned itself at
the forefront of these efforts by building the largest library of deeply
phenotyped clinical neurobiological data and a cloud-based platform
powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) to
inform rational, targeted drug discovery and development.”
“BlackThorn was founded to bring new therapies to patients by applying
advances in computational sciences to address patient heterogeneity, one
of the biggest historical challenges in the field of neuropsychiatric
drug development,” said Bill Martin, Ph.D., BlackThorn’s president and
chief operating officer. “Three years later, insights from our
data-driven approaches are yielding patient enrichment strategies that
could increase the probability of clinical trial success and improve
patient outcomes. We are grateful for our investors’ support to continue
advancing our platform and therapeutic pipeline as we build out a
world-class team at the intersection of technology and clinical
neuroscience.”
BlackThorn also announced two appointments to its executive management
team: Jane Tiller, MBChB, FRCPsych, as chief medical officer, and Laura
Hansen, Ph.D., as vice president, corporate affairs. Dr. Tiller, who
brings extensive clinical psychiatry and drug development experience,
will lead BlackThorn’s clinical and regulatory efforts. Dr. Hansen, who
brings extensive strategic communications experience, is responsible for
public and investor relations, scientific communications, and patient
advocacy.
“I am thrilled to join BlackThorn particularly at this time when the
nexus between artificial intelligence and the latest advances in
neuroscience promises to modernize the way we understand and treat
behavioral disorders,” said Dr. Tiller.
About Jane Tiller, MBChB, FRCPsych
Jane Tiller, MBChB, FRCPsych, is chief medical officer at BlackThorn.
Dr. Tiller has deep experience in clinical psychiatry and drug
development experience and was most recently head of European markets,
Australia and Canada, at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), where she oversaw
all medical functions. During her tenure at BMS, Dr. Tiller also served
as vice president of global medical for neuroscience, virology and
immunoscience and as full development team lead for the Alzheimer’s
program. Prior to joining BMS, Dr. Tiller held positions of increasing
responsibility at Cephalon, and, as vice president of neuroscience and
pain, was responsible for all clinical development activities including
programs for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety and sleep
disorders. Prior to joining the industry, Dr. Tiller was Clinical
Director at the Maudsley Hospital, London, where she was responsible for
clinical services for Southwark and across several London teaching
hospitals. She was a Consultant Psychiatrist (Attending) and Hon. Senior
Lecturer. Dr. Tiller is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists,
UK. Dr. Tiller obtained her medical degree from Glasgow University, an
executive MBA from Drexel University, and a MPhil in Organizational
Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania. She trained at the
Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry in London and at Duke
University as visiting faculty.
About Laura Hansen, Ph.D.
Laura Hansen, Ph.D., is vice president, corporate affairs at BlackThorn.
Dr. Hansen is a strategic communications leader with two decades of
experience in the biotech industry. Before joining BlackThorn, she was
vice president, investor relations at Aimmune Therapeutics, Inc., a
leading food allergy therapeutics company. Prior to that, she held
positions in corporate communications at Threshold Pharmaceuticals,
Inc., and FibroGen, Inc. At both companies, she was also responsible for
scientific communications related to novel therapeutic platforms in
oncology, fibrosis, and anemia. Dr. Hansen holds a Ph.D. in Biological
Sciences from The University of Texas at Austin.
About BlackThorn Therapeutics, Inc.
BlackThorn Therapeutics, Inc., is a clinical-stage neurobehavioral
health company pioneering the next generation of artificial intelligence
technologies to advance its pipeline of targeted therapeutics for
treating brain disorders. The company has engineered PathFinder™, a
cloud-based computational psychiatry and data platform, to enable the
collection, integration and analysis of multimodal data at great speed
and scale. BlackThorn applies its data-driven approaches to create an
understanding of the core underlying pathophysiology of neurobehavioral
disorders and uses these insights to generate objective neuromarkers,
which support drug target identification, patient stratification and
objective clinical trial endpoints. By identifying more homogenous
patient subgroups who share underlying neurobiology, BlackThorn aims to
direct its drug candidates to neurobiologically-defined patient
populations most likely to respond. BlackThorn is headquartered in San
Francisco, California. For more information, please visit blackthornrx.com
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