The Duke startup that won the first Duke Golden Ticket award from Duke CTSI and BioLabs North Carolina went on to earn $35 million in funding to develop the first treatment for newborns in neonatal intensive care units with white matter brain injury.
Eric Benner, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Duke and co-founder of the neonatal care company Tellus Therapeutics, was presented the Duke Golden Ticket in 2019. In December 2022, the startup announced the Series A financing led by the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund. Tellus is using the capital to continue important preclinical work and to advance TT-20, the company’s lead candidate for the treatment of white matter brain injury in preterm infants, as well as the company’s pipeline programs.
One in 10 babies is born premature in the United States, and white matter injury (WMI) is the most common brain injury for survivors of preterm birth. There are no approved treatments for WMI in newborns. TT-20 is derived from a class of molecules found in breast milk and has demonstrated safety and efficacy in models of WMI as a potential breakthrough treatment to address this unmet medical need in babies born premature.
Founded in 2018, Tellus Therapeutics is translating breakthrough science spun out of Benner’s Duke laboratory in collaboration with Tellus scientific co-founder Simon Gregory, PhD, a Duke neurosurgery professor.