“These funds bring us one step closer to developing a new treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy,” -Dr. Michael RudnickiSatellos Bioscience, a start-up company founded by Dr. Michael Rudnicki, has closed $55 million in financing to support the development of its lead drug candidate for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

Dr. Rudnicki and his team discovered that muscle stem cells employ a biological process known as "stem cell polarity" to regulate muscle repair and regeneration throughout life. They have also shown how regulatory defects in stem cell polarity lead to a failure of muscle repair and regeneration in DMD, representing a previously unrecognized root cause of this disease. As a result of this ongoing inability to produce sufficient numbers of new muscle cells, people with DMD are unable to repair the continuous and accumulating muscle tissue damage.

Based on this research, Satellos is advancing a novel small molecule therapeutic designed to rescue the defect in stem cell polarity and provide a disease-modifying treatment for DMD and other muscular dystrophies.

“These funds bring us one step closer to developing a new treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy,” said Dr. Michael Rudnicki, Senior Scientist and Scientific Director of Regenerative Medicine at The Ottawa Hospital, Professor at the University of Ottawa and Chief Scientific Officer at Satellos.

Learn more in the media release from Satellos.

The Ottawa Hospital is a leading academic health, research and learning hospital proudly affiliated with the University of Ottawa. All researchers at The Ottawa Hospital follow a Responsible Innovation framework for developing and commercializing innovations in a responsible way.