Karyopharm Therapeutics has completed a $10M Series A2 financing which complements the $20M Series A financing announced one year ago. Both Series A and A2 were lead by Chione. This brings the total raised by the company to approximately $32M since its inception. The funds will be used to expand the planned phase I program, targeted to begin in mid 2012 with Karyopharm's oral selective inhibitors of nuclear export (SINE) for various cancers. The company is also evaluating related transport modulators for use in dermatologic, inflammatory, and viral disorders.

Michael Kauffman, MD, PhD, Karyopharm's CEO, remarked, "This funding shows the confidence our investors have in our progress and platform. With these additional resources, we are able to move our oral clinical SINE compound for oncology into Phase I studies in both hematologic and solid tumor malignancies. The oral bioavailability and preliminary tolerability of the compounds allow us to investigate these agents for indications outside of cancer, including autoimmune, inflammatory and viral disorders. We look forward to bringing the first SINE therapeutic to patients with cancer in the coming year."

Karyopharm is a developer of nuclear transport modulators for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune, dermatologic, and viral diseases. These SINEs act by forcing the nuclear localization of major tumor suppressor and growth regulatory proteins, causing selective death of cancer cells while sparing normal cells. The Karyopharm platform, utilizing rapid chemical optimization with integrated computational/in silico rational drug design, has yielded multiple novel active small molecule SINEs, which have shown activity in a variety of animal models.