QurAlis Announces New Investors to Help Fund Drive to Cure ALS

QurAlis Corporation, a new private biotech company focused on developing precision solutions to cure ALS, today announced the addition of biotech investors MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH), Amgen Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments, who have joined the fight to cure Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

QurAlis was founded by Harvard professors and ALS and stem cell pioneers, Dr. Kevin Eggan and Dr. Clifford Woolf, along with Jonathan Fleming, CEO of Q-State Biosciences, and QurAlis’ CEO, Dr. Kasper Roet. Through initial support of ALS-focused friends and family investors, QurAlis is developing three precision therapies targeting three distinct subtypes of ALS: a drug to restore a dysfunctional cellular waste clearance system that progressively poisons neurons; a drug to treat overactive neurons and prevent cell death via excitotoxicity; and a transformative device to remove toxic proteins. Success with any of these therapies will have a tremendous positive impact on ALS patients and their families.

In 2017, QurAlis won the LabCentral Golden Ticket award given by Amgen. Through Amgen’s sponsorship, the Golden Ticket represents one year of free bench space to QurAlis, which includes LabCentral’s shared infrastructure and services and access to mentoring with Amgen’s scientists.

QurAlis has formed an experienced management team, which includes renowned structural biologist and drug design expert Dr. Manuel Navia, rare disease specialist Dr. Daniel Elbaum (CSO), and an extraordinary scientific advisory board including leading ALS clinicians and scientists Dr. Chris Shaw (King’s College London) and Dr. Matthew Kiernan (The University of Sydney). In 2017, QurAlis won the LabCentral Golden Ticket award given by Amgen. Through Amgen’s sponsorship, the Golden Ticket represents one year of free bench space to QurAlis, which includes LabCentral’s shared infrastructure and services and access to mentoring with Amgen’s scientists.

“We are now proud to announce that three important corporate investors have joined the seed round of QurAlis. MP Healthcare Venture Management (MPH), a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, the company that developed Radicava (edaravone), the only ALS treatment option in the United States approved by the FDA in the last 20 years...", said Dr. Roet.

The overall prevalence rate of ALS is 3.9 per 100,000 persons. Risk increases with age. Those 70–79 years have the highest prevalence rate (17.0 per 100,000 persons). A little over 6,000 people are diagnosed with ALS each year.