SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Maze Therapeutics, a company translating genetic insights into new precision medicines, today announced a $190 million financing led by Matrix Capital Management with participation from General Catalyst, a16z Bio+Health, Woodline Partners, Casdin Capital, City Hill Ventures, Foresite Capital, Driehaus Capital Management, Moore Strategic Ventures, Terra Magnum Capital Partners, NS Investments and several others. Maze was launched in 2019 with a financing led by Third Rock Ventures and ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from GV, Foresite Capital, Casdin Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments and other undisclosed investors and has since generated nine programs and two joint-ventures. In conjunction with the financing, Maze also announced that Matrix Capital Management’s Andy Tran has joined the company’s board of directors.
“Over the past year, Maze has generated data across multiple disease areas and modalities,” said Jason Coloma, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Maze. “I am confident that Maze has emerged at precisely the right moment with the right people to execute on an ambitious and important mission, and I am proud of our team for the progress made in our pipeline to date. As we transition to a clinical-stage company, we believe this financing provides important resources to advance our pipeline and to uncover new genetic associations to develop precision medicines for patients with genetically defined diseases.”
“We think Maze’s unique approach that fuses deep human genetics with a platform that can deliver end-to-end computational chemistry informed drug discovery has the potential to generate a continuous stream of precision therapies in complex disease areas that have long been underserved and lack meaningful treatment options,” said Andy Tran, investor at Matrix Capital Management and incoming Maze board director. “We have been impressed by the rapid progress from idea to program this world-class team of drug hunters and computational biologists has made and look forward to supporting the company in this next wave of growth.”
Proceeds from the financing will be used to support advancement of the company’s nine precision medicines programs for both rare and common genetically defined diseases with high unmet need, including its three most advanced programs, MZE001 for the treatment of Pompe disease, its APOL1 program for the treatment of chronic kidney disease and its ATXN2 program for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The company expects MZE001 to enter the clinic in the first half of 2022. Proceeds will also be used to further expand Maze Compass, the company’s purpose-built, end-to-end platform that seeks to take advantage of scientific advancements in genetics, genomics and data science to expedite drug discovery by focusing on variant functionalization to develop new small molecule and biologic therapies for patients with genetically based disorders.
Charles Homcy, M.D., chairman of the board and partner at Third Rock Ventures, commented, “The foundational vision of Maze was focused on applying learnings from the evolving landscape of genetic insights and the role they play in disease and translating that knowledge into new medicines where other approaches have fallen short. With the combination of its Compass platform, an exceptional team and this latest financing, I believe Maze is well-positioned to realize the potential of its vision and the true impact we may be able to make for many patients.”
About Maze Therapeutics
Maze Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company applying advanced data science methods in tandem with a robust suite of research and development capabilities to advance a pipeline of novel precision medicines for patients with genetically defined diseases. Maze has developed the Maze CompassTM platform, a proprietary, purpose-built platform that combines human genetic data, functional genomic tools and data science technology to map novel connections between known genes and their influence on susceptibility, timing of onset and rate of disease progression. Using Compass, Maze is building a broad portfolio, including wholly owned programs targeting Pompe disease, chronic kidney disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as partnered programs in cardiovascular and ophthalmic diseases. Maze is based in South San Francisco. For more information, please visit mazetx.com, or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
