Two university spin-offs emerge

Morphic Therapeutic has raised $51.5 million in a first round of venture capital funding from investors including Pfizer and AbbVie. Founded to translate advances from the lab of Harvard Medical School professor Timothy A. Springer, Morphic is developing small molecules that treat disease by targeting cell membrane proteins called integrins. Meanwhile, Storm Therapeutics has raised about $16 million in a first round of funding from investors including Pfizer and Merck & Co. A spin-off from the University of Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute, Storm seeks to develop small-molecule drugs that target RNA-modifying enzymes involved in cancer.