USA – HotSpot Therapeutics, a Boston, MA-based biotechnology company advancing the discovery and development of first-in-class allosteric therapies targeting nature’s regulatory sites, closed a $65m Series B financing.
The round was led by S.R. One, Limited and included funds managed by Tekla Capital Management, MRL Ventures Fund, Solasta Ventures and Brace Pharma (via affiliate Cleva Pharma), along with co-founding investors Atlas Venture and Sofinnova Partners. Concurrent with the financing, Jill Carroll, Partner at S.R. One, Limited, and Henry Skinner, PhD, Senior Vice President, Venture at Tekla Capital Management have joined the HotSpot Board of Directors. The company intends to use the funds to advance its lead programs to the clinic, including protein kinase C (PKC-theta) antagonists for Th2 and T-reg driven autoimmune disease and S6 kinase (S6K) antagonists for rare metabolic disease, and accelerate the discovery-stage pipeline targeting genetically validated transcription factors and E3 ligases, including CBL-B. Led by Jonathan Montagu, CEO, HotSpot Therapeutics is creating allosteric medicines that exploit natural control mechanisms. Leveraging understanding of protein structure-function, the SpotFinder™ platform identifies critical regulatory regions on proteins – “regulatory hotspots” – that are amenable to small molecule drug discovery. The platform uses advanced machine learning techniques to discover the underlying fingerprints of regulatory pockets. Using 3D structure insights from the uncovered pockets, the company has designed in-house DNA-encoded libraries (DEL) that comprise millions of tailored molecules. A proprietary screening paradigm using custom protein constructs, phenotypic screens and biophysics assays is then used to demonstrate the differentiated properties of hotspot-targeted molecules. 21/05/2020
