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Alethia Biotherapeutics announces that it has secured C$2.4 M ($2.385 mm) in financing.  Alethia is a Montreal-based biotechnology company that was created in 2002 aimed at discovering tissue-specific disease targets and developing monoclonal antibodies for use as focused therapeutic in areas of unmet medical needs.  Alethia’s pre-clinical programs are spear-headed by AB-0440, a protein present at the surface of osteoclasts, the cells in the skeleton that are responsible for degrading the bone in severe bone loss maladies. In the ovarian cancer program, a small membrane-anchored protein called AB-0447 is expressed in 85% of primary tumors and will serve as the target for driving the immune system to the site of the growing tumor. In both of these cases, the first lead mAb candidates will enter into in vivo studies later this year. Furthermore, a recent in-licensing agreement with the National Research Council of Canada has provided Alethia with access to expertise in the humanization and production of monoclonal antibodies as well as access to a family of monoclonal antibodies that target a circulating protein that plays a role in recurrent metastatic breast cancer.