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Locust Walk

420 Boylston Street, Floor 6, Boston, MA, 02116, United States

Overview

Locust Walk is the central artery of the University of Pennsylvania campus, a well-known, tree-lined brick pathway connecting members of the Penn community to the physical buildings of the campus. Locust Walk brings together that same confluence of high energy, creativity and collaboration, all grounded in real-world experience. These attributes are unique hallmarks of Locust Walk’s approach to transaction, strategy and commercial advisory work for biopharmaceutical companies. They bring to partnering and strategic consulting engagements a rare combination of operating, commercial, financial and technical acumen. This approach is the Locust Walk difference. Download their current company fact sheet.

Total investments
1
Lead investments
0
Investments · 12mo
0
Active investors
1

Sector focus

  • Business Development
  • Consulting
  • Impact Investing
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Investment portfolio

  • Elypta

    Participated · Series A · Jun 2022

    Elypta develops metabolism-based liquid biopsy tests that profile glycosaminoglycans (the GAGome) as biomarkers of cancer metabolism. The platform measures a novel panel of GAGome biomarkers and uses algorithms trained to detect cancer-specific signatures, an approach pioneered from research at Chalmers University of Technology by founders Francesco Gatto and Jens Nielsen. The company will use the $21 million Series A to develop and validate blood and urine tests for Multi-Cancer Early Detection (MCED) in asymptomatic adults and for detection of recurrence in kidney cancer patients. Management says the Series A fully funds development of its two leading indications. Elypta is advancing a broad study program, including LEVANTIS-0087A (a planned retrospective validation study enrolling over 9,000 subjects for MCED) and AURORAX-0087A, an EU co-funded prospective study for kidney cancer recurrence (grant No 849251). The company positions its metabolism-based approach as potentially more effective at detecting stage I cancers and more cost-efficient than some cell-free DNA–based MCED tests. Elypta develops a metabolism-based liquid biopsy platform that measures a panel of metabolites to enable early detection and closer follow-up of cancer. Its core product set comprises laboratory kits and accompanying software for measurement and analysis of those metabolites identified by the co-founders. The company is developing the technology to be validated across multiple cancers, with an initial application as a urine test for early detection of recurring kidney cancer where no suitable tests currently exist. That application is being explored in the pivotal AURORAX-87A study (NCT04006405). Elypta was co-founded in 2017 by professor Jens Nielsen (Chalmers University of Technology) and Dr Francesco Gatto (CSO) and is led by CEO Karl Bergman. In 2019 the company secured a €2.35m EU Horizon 2020 grant to fund the kidney cancer study, and in January 2020 it completed a €6.1m late seed round to finish development of its kits and software.

Team