Atavistik Bio – a biotechnology company discovering the next generation of precision allosteric therapeutics inspired by the body’s natural regulators – recently announced that it had raised an additional $40 million to advance its lead precision allosteric small molecule therapeutics in oncology into the clinic and to advance its earlier stage pipeline. The funding included existing investors, including The Column Group, Lux Capital, and Nextech Invest, Ltd. Since launching in August 2021, Atavistik Bio has raised $100 million in aggregate.
Atavistik Bio seamlessly integrates the proprietary Atavistik Metabolite-Protein Screening (AMPS) technology with its AI-enabled discovery engine to rapidly advance programs from discovery into development. And AMPS efficiently uncovers cryptic functional pockets not detectable with other techniques.
This is accomplished by leveraging metabolites, natural regulators of protein and RNA function in the body, as ‘bait’ to reveal otherwise hidden allosteric binding pockets on target proteins and functional sites on RNA. Then, Atavistik Bio applies its state-of-the-art, proprietary AI-enabled drug discovery engine to discover and design small molecules, enabling the rapid advancement of allosteric precision therapeutics.
With this integrated approach, Atavistik Bio has successfully and rapidly identified functional binding pockets for the development of small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of target classes, including kinases, enzymes, receptors, transcription factors, and protein complexes and RNA, and translated these insights into a robust discovery pipeline. And the company’s internal efforts are focused on oncology and rare diseases. It intends to utilize partnerships to extend the reach of its platform to other therapeutic areas, including metabolic and cardiovascular disease, inflammation and immunology disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’ve made tremendous progress identifying functional pockets of validated targets and have accelerated the development of precision allosteric therapeutics. Key to our success has been our outstanding team with the know-how and proven track record of discovering and developing transformative medicines. We’re grateful to our investors for their continued support of our mission. We look forward to using the proceeds from this raise to advance our lead program into the clinic and progress our additional programs and platform.”
- Bryan Stuart, Chief Executive Officer at Atavistik Bio
“Allostery continues to gain traction given its potential to modulate intractable targets and to offer better tolerated, more effective therapies for current sub-optimally treated diseases. In a short period of time, Atavistik Bio has quickly identified novel allosteric binding pockets in a broad range of targets and built a deep discovery pipeline. We believe that Atavistik Bio’s differentiated approach to identify chemical matter against challenging and valuable targets presents a compelling opportunity to bring important new, allosteric medicines to patients across a broad spectrum of disease areas.”
- John Josey, Ph.D., Venture Partner at The Column Group and Atavistik Bio’s Board Chair
