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news.BridGene Biosciences has raised $38.5m in Series B financing round for the development of its next generation chemoproteomic platform, Isobaric Mass Tagged Affinity Characterization (IMTAC), as well as oncology drugs.
BridGene will use the funding to further develop IMTAC platform that enables small molecules screening to discover drug candidates for undruggable targets like cancers. Credit: National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.
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Healthcare venture capital firm Lapam Capital, investment management firm Junson Capital and Dyee Capital have led the financing round.
BridGene’s IMTAC platform combines ‘cutting-edge’ technologies including chemical proteomics, covalent chemistry, and quantitative mass spectrometry.
It enables small molecules screening against the whole proteome or a prioritised target in live cells for discovering drug candidates to treat traditionally undruggable targets, including cancers.
The platform can identify hits for targets with shallow binding pockets by using covalent small molecules.
It can also identify hits by screening live cell for targets with temporary binding pockets that can only form in live cells, including protein: protein interactions.
The company also intends to use the funding for the development of its leading pipeline project, a covalent TEAD inhibitor.
The proceeds will also be used to develop few other undisclosed oncology pipeline projects, which were started based on the discoveries made using the IMTAC platform.
BridGene CEO and co-founder Ping Cao said: “Our pioneering work has expanded the scope of chemoproteomics technology from screening just covalent small molecules to also screening non-covalent small molecules, and from targeting just cysteine to targeting multiple amino acids.
“Our technology uniquely enables us to discover small-molecule drugs for traditionally undruggable targets with unparalleled speed and efficiency.
“It also enables us to build a pipeline with first-in-class drugs targeting well-known high-value and traditionally undruggable targets.
“Our long-term goal is to find small-molecule drugs for the most important targets in the proteome.”
Last year, the company entered into a strategic research collaboration and licensing agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical.
