Dewpoint Therapeutics Raises $77M Series B Financing to Advance the Development of Drugs That Target Biomolecular Condensates
Round led by ARCH Venture Partners
Giuseppe Ciaramella, Ph.D., joins Board of Directors
Since 2019 launch, the company has also announced collaborations with Bayer and Merck
BOSTON, Sept. 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Dewpoint Therapeutics, the biomolecular condensates company, today announced it has raised $77 million in a Series B financing. The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners, with participation from new investors Maverick Ventures and Bellco Capital, and existing investors Leaps by Bayer, EcoR1 Capital, Polaris Partners, Samsara BioCapital, and Innovation Endeavors.
"We are delighted to have ARCH Venture Partners lead this financing, and to welcome new investors into the condensate field," said Amir Nashat, managing partner of Polaris Partners and interim CEO of Dewpoint. "Our proprietary platform has already generated two significant external collaborations with Merck and Bayer, and today's announcement underscores the interest in biomolecular condensates among investors with a track record of backing groundbreaking science."
Dewpoint's proprietary condensates platform provides the ability to see and understand the complex interactions of biomolecular communities—and to find drugs that intervene in entirely new ways. Dewpoint will use proceeds from this round to further develop its platform and identify additional compounds that modulate these condensates.
"Dewpoint is the international center of gravity for developing and translating condensate science into drugs," said Kristina Burow, managing director at ARCH Venture Partners. "The company is well positioned to leverage novel insights into fundamental biology and utilize this groundbreaking biology to create transformational therapeutics."
"The Dewpoint team is a unique combination of executives who have brought more than ten drugs to market and researchers who have spent the last several years defining the science of condensates," said Oleg Nodelman, founder and portfolio manager of EcoR1 Capital. "This collection of drug hunters is a powerful force."
In addition to announcing its Series B, Dewpoint today announced the addition of Giuseppe Ciaramella, Ph.D., to its Board of Directors. Ciaramella is president and chief scientific officer of Beam Therapeutics. Prior to Beam, Dr. Ciaramella served at Moderna, first as head of immunology and biotherapeutics, then as chief scientific officer of its infectious diseases division. Prior to Moderna, he held senior drug development roles at AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Pfizer. Dr. Ciaramella holds a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from University College London.
Dewpoint's proprietary platform uses high-throughput methods to test libraries of potential drugs for the desired effect, identifying compounds that modulate biomolecular condensates in specific diseases of immediate interest to Dewpoint and its partners. Approaches to modulating condensates that may positively impact disease include dissolving or forming condensates, modulating the composition of condensates, stabilizing condensates, and selective drug delivery into condensates.
In July 2020, Dewpoint announced an exclusive collaboration with Merck (MSD) to leverage Dewpoint's proprietary biomolecular condensate platform for the development of a novel mechanism for the treatment of HIV. In November 2019, Dewpoint announced a collaboration with Bayer, combining the potential of Dewpoint's condensate platform with Bayer's small molecule compound library to develop new treatments for cardiovascular and gynecological diseases.
In addition to disease areas where Dewpoint has announced collaborations, the company is exploring potential therapeutic opportunities in oncology, neurodegeneration, metabolic disease, and immunology.
About Biomolecular Condensates
Biomolecular condensates, formed through a process called phase separation, are membraneless droplets inside cells that facilitate molecular interactions and help cells perform vital functions. Condensates have been shown to play a critical role in key biological processes and in serious, intractable diseases across areas including neurodegeneration, cancer, inflammation, infectious disease, metabolic disease, and rare genetic disorders. The first condensates were observed more than 100 years ago. It is only in the last dozen years, though, that scientists—including Dewpoint founders Tony Hyman of the Max Planck Institute in Dresden and Rick Young of the Whitehead Institute—have begun to understand the dynamic nature and function of condensates. Dewpoint develops drugs that exploit this biology. Prior to the discovery of biomolecular condensate function, it was unknown how the right molecules could find each other at the right time to catalyze important processes in the crowded molecular environment of the cell.
About Dewpoint Therapeutics
Dewpoint Therapeutics is the first to apply the emerging understanding of biomolecular condensates to drug discovery. Dewpoint believes that a vast range of conditions have pathways that are regulated by condensates or arise from the dysfunction of condensates — including cancer, neurodegeneration, and metabolic disease. Dewpoint scientists work in Boston, Dresden, and Berlin to translate condensate biology into treatments for the toughest diseases.
Learn more at dewpointx.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Scientists or investors interested in biomolecular condensates can also visit condensates.com for news and updates in the field.
SOURCE Dewpoint Therapeutics
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