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Sitari Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego, CA-based developer of multiple disease indication treatments with an initial focus on celiac types of diseases, raised USD 10 million in Series A financing. Celiac diseases are ailments attributed to an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine.

The company, which had been setup and heavily funded by Avalon Ventures and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), intends to use the Series A funding to further support research and development of novel treatments for celiac diseases. Avalon will also provide Sitari Pharmaceuticals with executive leadership and operational management, with support being provided directly by COI Pharmaceuticals (COI), a venture-pharma firm equipped with a R&D facility. GSK however, also has the option to acquire Sitari Pharmaceuticals upon the identification of a clinical candidate. Should GSK not elect to exercise such an option, Sitari ownership will continue to remain with Avalon, and with that in mind, Avalon will be free to enter into other strategic transactions.

Sitari Pharmaceuticals at the moment, is targeting the Transglutaminase 2 (TG2) pathway for the development of treatments for multiple diease indications, with an initial focus in celiac diseases. All of this is based on intellectual property in-licensed from the laboratory of Chaitan Khosla, Ph.D., whom is a professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at Standford University and also the Director of the Stanford Institute for Chemical Biology.