With strong ties to University of Michigan, MEKanistic Therapeutics is a startup focused on the development of cancer therapeutics. Principals of the firm have discovered and designed small molecules that can selectively hit two cancer targets simultaneously with reduced risk of drug-drug interactions. Anchored in work pioneering the discovery and development of MEK inhibitors -- now in clinical use for the treatment of melanoma -- the computational chemistry expertise of one one the principals complements the cancer biology expertise of the other. The focus is on design of more effective drugs to circumvent resistance mechanisms commonly encountered with currently available kinase-targeted agents. The firm's lead compound, MTX-211, represents a first-in-class molecule that selectively and potently inhibits both of these critical oncogenic kinases, which are known to drive progression in a number of tumor types, including colorectal cancer. Currently, there are no approved treatments for patients diagnosed with metastatic KRAS mutant colorectal cancer. MTX-211 is innovative because it attacks KRAS oncogenic signaling using two independent mechanisms, serving effectively as a combination approach in a single molecule. Firm is listed as having raised $30M in June 2022 but not clear if monies actually allocated.