Elara is a spinout company dedicated to drug development and will follow up on promising small molecule leads that have shown powerful anticancer actions in screening experiments. Elara will receive seed funding from EMBL Ventures and has been granted exclusive license rights to selected discoveries made at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
Elara will follow up on promising leads of molecules that block the signaling protein Aurora kinase A, which is strongly overexpressed in cancer cells, and on inhibitors that affect estrogen receptor signaling, a process essential in the development of breast cancer.
“Traditionally, there is a significant gap between basic research and drug development,” said Christof Antz, managing director of EMBL Ventures. “It often takes years to get from promising findings to a therapeutic approach. With Elara we aim to bridge this gap and create a direct pipeline from the Laboratory by way of animal testing to clinical development.”