PAQ Therapeutics Secures Series B Extension for Cancer Therapies Targeting KRAS
PAQ Therapeutics did not start in oncology. That matters. Incorporated in June 2020 and launched in July 2021 with a $30M Series A, the PAQ Therapeutics Burlington, Massachusetts company originally aimed its science at a neurodegenerative disease with no options. The bet was never the indication. The bet was the mechanism. Autophagy, the cell’s own cleanup crew, pressed into service not to slow disease down but to remove the problem entirely.
That mechanism now sits squarely in cancer. PAQ Therapeutics closed a $38M Series B extension, bringing total Series B financing to $77M. Bayland Capital and MRL Ventures Fund led again, with Casdin Capital joining and Janssen Innovation (Johnson & Johnson Innovation), LAV Fund, BioTrack Capital, and Sherpa Health Partners returning. Capital tends to follow clarity, and this round landed the same day the first patient was dosed with PT0511, PAQ’s pan-KRAS degrader.
KRAS has been a stubborn character in this story for decades, driving roughly a quarter of all tumors while dodging durable solutions. PAQ is not trying to mute KRAS. It is trying to escort it out. Using autophagosome-tethering compounds, the ATTEC platform pulls KRAS proteins into the autophagy pathway and eliminates them. Not inhibited. Not partially blocked. Removed. It is a different argument entirely, and one that opens the door to both selective and pan-variant strategies.
Those strategies are now in humans. PT0253, a KRAS G12D selective degrader, entered Phase 1 in early 2025. PT0511, the pan-KRAS program, followed with its first patient dosed in January 2026, including plans for combination evaluation with cetuximab in colorectal cancer. Two Phase 1 programs, 8 months apart, is not luck. It is execution.
Nan Ji, PhD, co-founder, President, and CEO, built his career in small-molecule chemistry and protein degradation long before it was fashionable, with prior leadership roles at Novartis, Mitobridge, and Kymera Therapeutics. Huaixiang Hao, PhD, co-founder and Head of Biology, spent eight years inside Novartis focused on RAS pathway biology and resistance. Andrew Krivoshik, MD, PhD joined as CMO in 2025 after leading global oncology development programs at Astellas and guiding multiple approvals. This is not a discovery shop learning on the fly. It is a clinical company acting like one.
The Series B extension is earmarked for dual Phase 1 execution, GMP manufacturing scale-up, and expansion cohorts across pancreatic, colorectal, and lung cancers. It keeps PAQ moving through 2028 with multiple shots on goal and real clinical answers ahead. Autophagy, it turns out, is not just about cleaning house. It is about deciding what cannot stay, and acting on it while the rest of the field is still negotiating.