Think Bioscience extends Seed Round to accelerate pocket-finding platform

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May 07, 2024, 10:00 ET

Think Bioscience welcomes new investor YK Bioventures and drug discovery veteran Wendy Young to the board

BOULDER, Colo., May 7, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Think Bioscience ("Think"), a Boulder-based synthetic biology company focused on developing small-molecule therapeutics that target "undruggable" proteins, has announced a $6M Seed Expansion. Existing investors are joined by YK Bioventures, bringing total funding to $26M. The additional raise will accelerate the company's pipeline and expand their unique approach for finding new functional pockets on challenging targets.

Ultimately, the biochemical properties of any small-molecule drug are constrained by its binding site, a pocket on its protein target. Despite advances in computational chemistry and structural biology, new functional pockets remain challenging to find. Think's pocket-finding process programs microbes to build small molecules that bind to functional pockets, and they use these pockets to find hits in drug-like space. They have extended their platform technology to a striking variety of targets such as protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), kinases (PTKs), proteases, and GTPases.

"Nature has endowed living systems with an extraordinary ability to build potent bioactive compounds, usually to fulfill important ecological functions, such as defense," said Dr. Jerome Fox, co-founder and CEO of Think Bioscience. "We are using a similar selection process to discover new functional pockets on challenging drug targets. New pockets are gold."

Gary Yeung, a managing partner at YK Bioventures, added, "We invested in Think Bioscience because of its transformational platform for new discoveries. Think Bio has already identified multiple novel pockets and generated strong pre-clinical data for its lead programs. We are eager to support Think Bio's science-driven leadership team to advance these programs and to fund its growth."

Dr. Wendy Young will join the Board of Directors, which includes fellow veteran drug developer Nick Saccomano. Dr. Young has held leadership positions in biopharma for over 30 years and most recently spent 15 years at Genentech where she served as Senior Vice President of Small Molecule Drug Discovery and co-led research. She currently serves as a SAB member to Think, as well as several other biotech companies, and is an advisor at Google Ventures. "We look forward to working even more closely with Wendy," said Dr. Jerome Fox, co-founder and CEO at Think Bioscience. "Wendy and Nick bring a wealth of drug development expertise. Their guidance will be invaluable as we expand our platform to new classes of important targets and push pipeline programs toward the clinic."

About Think Bioscience
Think Bioscience is reimagining synthetic biology by using living systems to guide the design and assembly of better medicines. The company programs microbes to build small molecules that bind to functional pockets, and they use these pockets to find hits in drug-like space. The platform technology has been expanded to protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs), kinases (PTKs), proteases, and GTPases. Learn more about us at www.thinkbioscience.com.

SOURCE Think Bioscience