Amino acids play necessary roles in tumors, so concentrating on these molecules is sensible for most cancers drug analysis. However a lot of this analysis has targeted on simply one of many 20 amino acids present in people. It’s a key one to make sure, however Andrew Phillips, founder and CEO of Nexo Therapeutics, contends a broader strategy is a greater approach to discover new medication able to addressing a few of most cancers’s hardest targets.
Nexo isn’t disclosing its targets for now, however the firm is able to share some particulars about its analysis. The Versant Ventures-founded startup emerged from stealth this week with $60 million in Sequence A financing and an alliance with The College of Texas MD Anderson Most cancers Middle.
“It truly is to innovate chemistry and chemical biology to work on a few of these elusive targets,” Phillips stated. “None of us are followers of the time period ‘undruggable.’ Many targets are seen as undruggable for know-how causes. That’s not us.”
Nexo, which relies in Littleton, Colorado, and has analysis labs in Watertown, Massachusetts, is engaged on what Phillips describes as the subsequent wave of covalent drug discovery. Small molecules that kind covalent bonds have a stronger connection to their targets. Along with making the medication stronger, covalency makes them extra selective, which means they’re much less prone to hit different targets and trigger hostile results.
The AbbVie and Janssen Biotech drug Imbruvica, Tagrisso from AstraZeneca, and Amgen’s Lumakras every tackle totally different most cancers targets. Nonetheless, these medication all work by forming covalent bonds with an amino acid on their targets referred to as cysteine. Different analysis efforts are underway concentrating on cysteine in some method as a method of treating most cancers. Nexo goals to transcend cysteine.
Whereas chemistries exist to focus on different amino acids, nobody has put them collectively right into a single know-how platform, Phillips stated. Nexo really has two platforms. The chemistry platform, referred to as CODON, screens a library of covalent fragments at scale to seek out ligands, the molecules that may bind to a goal. The chemical biology platform, referred to as INFINI-T, yields perception into how deeply and the way lengthy a molecule most work together with its goal to have a pharmacological impact.
Phillips likened Nexo’s strategy to mountaineering. A climber should select the perfect path to take for the ascent. An undruggable or difficult-to-drug goal is sort of a cliff face with no clear place to begin a climb. The Nexo applied sciences assist the startup discover beginning factors for its medication.
“Covalency offers us that handhold on the cliff face,” Phillips stated. “With that handhold on the cliff face, we are able to optimize our leads.”
There are different firms additionally attempting to deliver covalent chemistry to extra amino acids. The analysis of South San Francisco-based Terremoto Biosciences focuses on creating small molecules that concentrate on lysine. Umbra Therapeutics, primarily based in Lexington, Massachusetts, is researching approaches to each tyrosine and lysine. Carlo Rizzuto, managing director at Versant and a Nexo board member, stated Nexo can stand aside by taking a broader view of the amino acids which are key to most cancers.
“These firms are taking a really targeted strategy with a selected chemistry for one amino acid,” he stated. “What we’re attempting to do is be extra complete.”
Phillips was the president and CEO of C4 Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech creating medication that make use of an strategy referred to as focused protein degradation. In 2020, he joined Cormorant Asset Administration. Whereas there, he met the Versant crew. Rizzuto stated he and Phillips turned excited in regards to the alternative to take covalent drug analysis past cysteine they usually fashioned Nexo.
Most cancers is simply the beginning for Nexo. Phillips stated going past cysteine may additionally take the startup into immunology and maybe neuroscience. A few of that analysis might be finished by means of partnerships, he added. Within the nearer time period, the MD Anderson partnership will assist Nexo deliver its most cancers medication into the clinic. The startup will leverage MD Anderson’s Translational Analysis to Advance Therapeutics and Innovation in Oncology (TRACTION) platform, which supplies the startup entry to in vitro and in vivo fashions for its analysis.
MD Anderson has related agreements with different biotech firms. In 2021, the most cancers heart started a three-year alliance targeted on an experimental Blueprint Medicines most cancers remedy. Just like the Blueprint deal, Nexo will present MD Anderson with analysis funding and the most cancers heart is eligible to obtain milestone funds and royalties from gross sales of commercialized merchandise that stem from the collaboration. Nexo will hold all rights to its applications.
Nexo’s new financing was led by Versant. New Enterprise Associates and Cormorant Asset Administration additionally participated within the startup’s funding spherical.
Photograph by poncho by way of Getty Photos
