Kosan Biosciences, Inc. (stock symbol: KOSN), was a

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field an ...

company which dealt with

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

therapeutics medications. The company was working on advancing two new classes of anticancer agents through clinical development:

heat shock protein Heat shock proteins (HSP) are a family of proteins produced by cells in response to exposure to stressful conditions. They were first described in relation to heat shock, but are now known to also be expressed during other stresses including expo ...

90 (

Hsp90 Hsp90 (heat shock protein 90) is a chaperone protein that assists other proteins to fold properly, stabilizes proteins against heat stress, and aids in protein degradation. It also stabilizes a number of proteins required for tumor growth, ...

) inhibitors and epothilones. Their technology platform was based on manipulation of the genetic instructions of microbes for making natural product

polyketide Polyketides are a class of natural products derived from a precursor molecule consisting of a chain of alternating ketone (or reduced forms of a ketone) and methylene groups: (-CO-CH2-). First studied in the early 20th century, discovery, biosynth ...

s. Rearranging the modular units in natural

polyketide synthase Polyketides are a class of natural products derived from a precursor molecule consisting of a chain of alternating ketone (or reduced forms of a ketone) and methylene groups: (-CO-CH2-). First studied in the early 20th century, discovery, biosynth ...

s, combining modules from different enzymes, and incorporating novel synthetic chemical starter units enabled them to produce a wide variety of novel polyketides that would be difficult to obtain via organic synthesis alone. Founded in 1995, Kosan was headquartered in Hayward, California and had approximately 90 employees. Kosan was funded in part as a

venture capital Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to start-up company, startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth poten ...

start-up with funds from Sofinnova Ventures of California. On June 26, 2008, Kosan Biosciences was acquired by

Bristol-Myers Squibb The Bristol Myers Squibb Company (BMS) is an American multinational pharmaceutical company. Headquartered in New York City, BMS is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and consistently ranks on the ''Fortune'' 500 list of the lar ...

for $190M.

Discodermolide

Discodermolide (+)-Discodermolide is a polyketide natural product found to stabilize microtubules. (+)-discodermolide was isolated by Gunasekera and his co-workers at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute from the deep-sea sponge '' Discodermia dissoluta'' i ...

is a recently discovered

natural product found to be a potent inhibitor of tumor cell growth. Kosan had been working in conjunction with th
Amos B. Smith research group
on a preclinical drug development program.

Management

Helen S. Kim was the President & CEO of Kosan Biosciences in 2008 until it was sold to BMS. One member of the Board of Directors, Dr.

Jean Deleage Dr. Jean Deleage Ph.D. (1940–2011) was an early venture capital investor responsible for the founding or co-founding of three notable venture capital firms since 1971: Sofinnova, Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co. and Alta Partners. Career Deleage began ...

, was one of the founders and managing partners of Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., a private

firm which invested in

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...

communications Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...

, and healthcare/

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

companies.

References

External links

Bristol-Myers Squibb acquires Kosan (26 June 2008)
* ttps://sec.report/Ticker/KOSN KOSAN BIOSCIENCES INC SEC FILINGS {{Authority control Organizations established in 1995 Companies based in Hayward, California Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area 1995 establishments in California