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Sunesis Pharmaceuticals Stage: Venture Date of Investment: 1999 Web Site : http://www.sunesis-pharma.com Stock Symbol : Nasdaq: SNSS |
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Sunesis Pharmaceuticals was founded in 1998 around a proprietary
technology designed to dramatically increase the productivity of the
drug-discovery process. In 1999, Warburg Pincus led Sunesis' second
round of private financing to help the company build out its technology
platform and infrastructure to capitalize on the potential of this
novel approach. The company utilizes its "target-directed fragment
discovery" technology to reduce the number of compounds that must be
screened to provide sufficient leads for drug development. In this way,
the company accelerates drug discovery and removes one of the major
bottlenecks to developing promising compounds. Sunesis has entered into
collaborations with Merck, J&J and Biogen Idec in which it is
applying its “Tethering” technology to discover novel small molecules.
Furthermore, Sunesis recently in-licensed and is internally developing
two oncology compounds which are advancing in clinical trials. Sunesis
completed an initial public offering in 2005.
