MOMA is Raging Against the Machine with $150M in New Funds

MOMA Therapeutics announced Tuesday the completion of a $150 million Series B financing round. The round was led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management, with participation from Section 32, Pavilion Capital, Invus and LifeSci Venture Partners.

MOMA was launched in 2020 with $86 million in Series A financing and was listed as one of BioSpace’s top life sciences startups to watch in 2021. The company proffers molecular machines as its platform—enzymes that create force, work and motion within many cells of the body and aid in processes such as DNA replication and repair, biomolecular transport and protein homeostasis.

MOMA intends to discover the next generation of precision medicines by targeting the molecular machines that underlie disease. The company is establishing a platform to exploit a key vulnerability inherent to molecular machines - their dependence on changes in protein conformation. 

MOMA stated that it plans to use the money to further develop product opportunities and advance a rich pipeline of precision oncology programs. Its approach is based on surveying all conformational states of a molecular machine to identify small molecule binders, which would help the company to select compounds whose action affects function by disrupting the enzyme’s conformational cycle. In cancerous cells, a tumor’s survival could be dependent upon the activity of a molecular machine, making it a great target for therapeutics.

MOMA has appointed Amit Sinha, head of life sciences investing within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, to its board of directors. Sinha joins a growing team at MOMA, which includes Senior Vice President and Head of Data Science Hans Bitter, Ph.D., and Chief Scientific Officer Peter Hammerman, M.D., Ph.D.

Bitter was appointed in October 2021. He previously served as senior vice president of data sciences and chief data officer of oncology at bluebird bio and was the global head of oncology bioinformatics at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research prior. Hammerman also joined MOMA from the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he served as the global head of oncology in translational research.

The company is helmed by CEO Asit Parikh, M.D., Ph.D., who was formerly senior vice president and head of the gastroenterology unit at Takeda. His successes at Takeda include worldwide approvals for Entyvio for indications of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s Disease.

With the new financing and recent acclaim, MOMA is adding to the growing scientific interest in molecular machines and their use in therapeutics.