Axial: https://linktr.ee/axialxyz
Axial partners with great founders and inventors. We invest in early-stage life sciences companies such as Appia Bio, Seranova Bio, Delix Therapeutics, Simcha Therapeutics, among others often when they are no more than an idea. We are fanatical about helping the rare inventor who is compelled to build their own enduring business. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company . We are excited to be in business with you - email us at info@axialvc.com
Identifying and overcoming the sampling challenges in relative binding free energy calculations of a model protein:protein complex led by Ivy Zhang from the John Chodera lab https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.07.530278v1
Vault: Foundation Medicine
Enveda Biosciences is a drug discovery company, founded in 2019, that uses machine learning, metabolomics, and robotics to discover new medicines from nature's chemistry. Developing small molecules for complex diseases. Their platform rapidly indexes nature's untapped chemical space for new drugs, and allow natural product drug discovery to break free of the bottlenecks of isolating and studying one molecule at a time.
Working to develop treatments for NASH, Wilson's disease, Parkinson's, acute liver failure, type 2 diabetes, pain, and hypercholesterolemia. With multiple platform-derived candidate moving to the clinic in 2023 and 2024 across inflammation, fibrosis, and neurosensory indications.
Driven by its technology platform that solves long-standing obstacles in natural product drug development including active molecule identification, property and structure prioritization, amenability to medicinal chemistry, and large-scale material access:
- Biologically relevant library: Enveda's library of natural products is shaped by evolution and is therefore more likely to be biologically active than synthetic libraries. And hopefully increase hit rates.
- Unique technology platform: their platform overcomes the historical challenges of bioactivity annotation, structure elucidation, and manufacturing.
Using its high-resolution chemical map of the natural world to take on some of the toughest problems in drug discovery.
Danaher buys Abcam for $5.7B to bring on the latter's product portfolio of antibodies, reagents, biomarkers and assays. Reportedly outbidding Agilent during the M&A process that evaluation ~20 bidders.
After a proxy battle between the company's founder and current management, which attracted strategic buyers to emerge. With this acquisition, Danaher can apply its DBS process to Abcam, on-board a highly recurring customer base and also enter the protein consumables market.
CFT1946
An oral, mutant-selective BRAFV600X degrader
In phase 1 trials to treat BRAF-driven cancers developed C4 Therapeutics
Superluminal Medicines raised $33M led by RA Capital. To build a generative chemistry platform, initially focused on small molecules for high-value G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. Working to generate candidate-ready compounds with differentiated target-product profiles in months.
GPCRs are a large family of integral membrane proteins that act as key regulators of cellular signaling. Out of 850 GPCRs, 70% are undrugged and only 138 have experimental active-state protein structures.
Worth a Read: 'Unexpected Effects of Protein Degradation' https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/unexpected-effects-protein-degradation
Compounds and methods for the targeted degradation of rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma polypeptides
Inventors: Andrew Crew, Keith Hornberger, Jing Wang, Hanqing Dong, Yimin Qian, Craig Crews, Saul Jaime-Figueroa
Current Assignees: Yale, Arvinas
Claims: a bifunctional compound wi the chemical structure: ULM-L-PTM. Where ULM = a Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) E3 ubiquitin binding moiety, L = a chemical linking group, and PTM = protein targeting ligand. To selectively degrade RAF like c-RAF, A-RAF and B-RAF.
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e1/02/d7/d65d66352e169d/US10723717.pdf
Design Of Artificial Proteins As Ultrafast, Genetically Encoded Electrophysiological Reporters invented by Brian Chow, Peter Leslie Dutton Christopher Moser, Bohdana Discher, and Nathan Ennist
Applications: A biosensing platform, expressable in mammalian cells, for different electrophysiological signals. With ultrafast response across a dynamic range of temporal resolution and sensitivity.
https://upenn.technologypublisher.com/technology/51306
Shennon Biotechnologies is hiring a Scientist focused NGS and TCR Sequencing https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3706064716
Shennon Biotechnologies is developing a single-cell platform that enables functional profiling of immune cell and antigen interactions at high selectivity and throughput. Founded in 2021, the company is developing a pipeline of cell therapy targets for the treatment of solid tumors and later autoimmune diseases.
Scientist Stories: Hans Clevers, Stem Cell based Organoids in Human Disease
Numab Therapeutics is a biotech company in Zurich, Switzerland developing multi-specific antibodies that enable the pursuit of novel therapeutic strategies for cancer and other diseases
Their MATCH technology platform allows them to create molecules with up to six binding specificities, which could be used to target multiple disease-related pathways in a single drug.
Numab's lead product candidate, ND021, is a multi-specific antibody that targets PD-L1 and 4-1BB. PD-L1 is a checkpoint protein that helps tumors evade the immune system, while 4-1BB is a receptor that promotes T cell activation. ND021 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical study for the treatment of cancer.
Numab has also partnered with Intarcia Therapeutics to develop multi-specific antibodies for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Intarcia's technology allows them to deliver drugs once or twice a year, which could improve patient compliance and adherence.
"Overcoming the hurdles has built a great faith in me that things can be done to help people with rare diseases. It will drive my optimism forever and my belief in achieving things that seem impossible."
- Henri Termeer, former CEO of Genzyme
