Santa Cruz, Oct. 12, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Unnatural Products, Inc. (UNP), a biotech company pairing AI with parallel chemistry to create treatments for drug targets that aren’t amenable to current therapeutic strategies, today announced a research collaboration and option agreement with Bridge BioPharma, Inc. (BridgeBio), a biopharmaceutical company founded to discover, create, test and deliver transformative medicines to treat patients who suffer from genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers. By leveraging UNP’s technology, which takes macrocyclic tool compounds and turns them into drugs, UNP and BridgeBio will generate drug-like macrocycles with the hopes of creating the capabilities to hit intracellular targets associated with rare fibrotic diseases and potential oncology applications.
UNP is changing the way disease is treated by making all targets druggable. The company’s AI-enhanced technology platform enables new drugs by engineering passively permeable, macrocyclic peptides that access traditionally undruggable targets. Macrocycles found in nature bridge the gap between small molecules and biologics by transcending the traditional boundaries of cell permeability to access deep, complex targets with high specificity. Though these naturally derived macrocycles are already used as therapeutics, UNP is capable of engineering these properties into synthetic macrocycles against virtually any drug target.
Changing the way we treat disease
UNP and BridgeBio are working to turn initial chemical series from exciting academic tool compounds into promising therapeutics.
“This partnership has potential to provide new insights into the target biology and demonstrate the power of macrocycles in shining light on dark biological pathways,” said Cameron Pye, co-founder and CEO at UNP. “Our platform is uniquely positioned to translate these cyclic peptide macrocycles identified from display technologies and create entirely new drug molecules, with far reaching potential applications that include rare conditions, oncology, and beyond.”
“We are pleased to be partnering with Unnatural Products to try and address diseases that have thus far have been challenging to treat. We believe their platform and macrocycles as a therapeutic modality may have the potential to help patients in need and we are eager to explore this approach,” said Eli Wallace, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for oncology at BridgeBio.
The terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
This is UNP’s first foray outside of its internal oncology pipeline, which includes other targets like p53 and K-Ras G12D.
For more information about UNP visit https://www.unnaturalproducts.com/.
About Unnatural Products, Inc.
Unnatural Products, Inc. (UNP) is a California-based biotech company with an AI-enhanced chemistry platform that enables a new class of drugs by engineering passively permeable, macrocyclic peptides that access traditionally undruggable targets. Founded by researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz who worked on groundbreaking macrocycle research that underpins the company's platform, the team is made up of brilliant scientists, engineers, and drug developers. UNP has a rapidly growing internal pipeline of assets against some of oncology’s toughest and most valuable targets, and is working with select partners on external programs. UNP is privately held and funded by ARTIS Ventures, Abstract Ventures, Asset Management Ventures, Better Ventures, Blue Bear Ventures, Merck Global Health and Innovation Fund, Rising Tide Fund, and Wing VC. For updates and partnering opportunities contact contact@unnaturalproducts.com.
About BridgeBio Pharma, Inc.
BridgeBio Pharma, Inc. (BridgeBio) is a biopharmaceutical company founded to discover, create, test and deliver transformative medicines to treat patients who suffer from genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers. BridgeBio’s pipeline of over 30 development programs ranges from early science to advanced clinical trials and its commercial organization is focused on delivering the company’s two approved therapies. BridgeBio was founded in 2015 and its team of experienced drug discoverers, developers and innovators are committed to applying advances in genetic medicine to help patients as quickly as possible. For more information visit bridgebio.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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