Deerfield forms protein degradation center with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Deerfield Management is backing research at yet another institution. The health care venture firm says it will invest up to $80 million in a center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that will study protein degradation, the process whereby unwanted proteins are directed to the proteasome to be broken down. The center will solicit ideas from Dana-Farber and Harvard ­Medical School researchers for small-molecule protein degraders. Deerfield also has pacts with Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.