Charlottesville’s ZielBio finalized a $15 million funding round this summer to complete initial trials of a cancer treatment drug it hopes to bring to market in 2024.
The genesis for the company started when founder and CEO Kimberly Kelly was completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. She noticed a correlation in some cancers with the progression of cancer-specific plectin, a protein. The protein became more prevalent in part of cancer cells as certain cancers progressed. She began researching ways to target the plectin as a treatment.
Kelly took a position as a professor in biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia and continued her research. She developed a targeted treatment and initially talked to pharmaceutical companies about licensing the technology. Because the approach was new, the companies wanted to see more data. That meant spinning the technology off from the university and seeking private financing.
“The government and the institutions…
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