Forma Therapeutics bucks trend, raises $25m from investors

Biologist Sunaina Pai examines breast cancer cells at Forma Therapeutics in Cambridge. (Globe Staff Photo / Matthew J. Lee)

Forma Therapeutics Inc., a stealth biotech start-up trying to develop cancer drugs, is lifting its corporate veil.

The one-year-old Cambridge company, which has previously been secretive about its mission and finances, plans to disclose today it has raised $25 million in venture capital, grants, loans, and other funding over the past year - a feat that has become increasingly rare as the economy slid into recession, the stock market plunged, and the market for initial public offerings disintegrated.

The economic turmoil has forced many venture capital firms to divert money from promising start-ups to later-stage companies frozen out of the public markets.

"It's been a very challenging economic environment to do fund-raising," said Steven Tregay, Forma's chief executive.

Tregay formerly worked as managing director at the Novartis Option Fund - one of the venture funds run by Swiss drug maker Novartis AG - and persuaded the fund to become one of Forma's initial key investors. The other major investor is Bio*One Capital, a venture fund backed by the government of Singapore, where Forma has facilities.

Forma hopes to develop cancer-fighting drugs by using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas project, a collaboration of the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute. As the project identifies new genes linked to cancer, Forma in tends to use high-powered screening to find out whether any known compounds appear to be effective in controlling those genes.

Forma has about 42 employees, nearly half of whom work in Cambridge, with plans to grow to 55 to 60 by year-end. Three cofounders - Stuart Schreiber, Todd Golub, and Michael Foley - are connected to the Broad Institute in Cambridge, a research organization affiliated with MIT and Harvard.

Todd Wallack can be reached at twallack@globe.com.