From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Kosan Biosciences

Field	Value
name	Kosan Biosciences, Inc.
founded	1995
hq_location	Hayward, California
key_people	Helen S. Kim (President & CEO)
num_employees	90

Kosan Biosciences, Inc. (stock symbol: KOSN), was a pharmaceutical company which dealt with cancer therapeutics medications. The company was working on advancing two new classes of anticancer agents through clinical development: heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitors and epothilones.

Their technology platform was based on manipulation of the genetic instructions of microbes for making natural product polyketides. Rearranging the modular units in natural polyketide synthases, combining modules from different enzymes, and incorporating novel synthetic chemical starter units enabled them to produce a wide variety of novel polyketides that would be difficult to obtain via organic synthesis alone.{{cite journal

Founded in 1995, Kosan was headquartered in Hayward, California and had approximately 90 employees. Kosan was funded in part as a venture capital start-up with funds from Sofinnova Ventures of California. Kosan was one of a small number of biotech companies focussed on polyketide drug discovery and development. Another was Biotica Technology Ltd..

On June 26, 2008, Kosan Biosciences was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $190M.

Discodermolide

Discodermolide is a recently discovered polyketide natural product found to be a potent inhibitor of tumor cell growth. Kosan had been working in conjunction with the Amos B. Smith research group on a preclinical drug development program.

Management

Helen S. Kim was the President & CEO of Kosan Biosciences in 2008 until it was sold to BMS. One member of the Board of Directors, Dr. Jean Deleage, was one of the founders and managing partners of Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co., a private venture capital firm which invested in information technology, communications, and healthcare/biotechnology companies.

References

https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/pdf/S1074-5521(02)00193-X.pdf{{Dead link. (December 2025)
"BMS buys Kosan for $190M".
"Kosan Biosciences appoints Helen Kim".
"Helen Kim".

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

organizations-established-in-1995 companies-based-in-hayward,-california technology-companies-based-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area 1995-establishments-in-california

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Kosan Biosciences — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report