Cancer-focused Ideaya unveiled

Oncology-focused Ideaya Biosciences has launched with $46 million in its first formal round of financing. Backers include 5AM Ventures, Canaan Partners, Celgene, Wuxi Healthcare Ventures, and Novartis. The company is led by Yujiro Hata—who previously was chief operating officer at Flexus Biosciences, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb last year for $1.5 billion—and has a star-studded cast of scientific advisers. Ideaya will develop drugs that target the tumor microenvironment as well as treatments that exploit the concept of “synthetic lethality,” in which perturbations in at least two genes are required for cell death.