Startups

Protein-motion startup launches armed with $57M to develop drugs, crack cancer code

Relay Therapeutics is aiming to identify the way proteins in cells move and shift and morph, and this understanding can help open the door to new, more effective drugs.

capital

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when it comes to disease discovery, Bay Area VC firm Third Rock Ventures is betting its money on moving pictures.

But instead of Hollywood blockbusters, the San Francisco-based investment firm injected $57 million of Series A venture capital funding this week into Relay Therapeutics, a biomed startup that is working on transforming the understanding of how proteins work through the equivalent of what we they would call short movies — about proteins.

Molecular-level movies may not spark the imagination of too many directors. But for oncology patients, the imaging techniques Relay is working on represent another front in the effort to crack the code of cancer.

The technique that Relay, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is crafting identifies the way proteins in our cells move and shift and morph. They call this behavior “protein motion” and say it’s groundbreaking because understanding the dynamics behind proteins helps open the door to new, more effective drugs.

“We have known for a long time that proteins are constantly moving in a cell and that this motion correlates with function,” Alexis Borisy, a partner at Third Rock Ventures and interim CEO of Relay, said in an email.

He explained that different proteins in tissues are dedicated to supporting various aspects of cellular behavior and display distinct patterns of movement. Relay Therapeutics is seeking to better understand the relationship between that protein motion and cellular function and to leverage that knowledge to create better medicines for patients.

“By placing protein motion at the heart of drug discovery, Relay is ushering in a new generation of drugs,” Borisy said.

Those patients, at least for now, will be in oncology.

Third Rock actually kept Relay under its wing for a year and the company has been operating in stealth mode for approximately six months.

But they’re just one in a growing number of such ventures that have been expanding Third Rock’s biotech pipeline. In February the firm pumped the entire $45 million Series A round into Pliant Therapeutics, which develops fibrosis treatments. Headed by former pharma executives, Third Rock specializes in incubating early stage medical startups and since 2007 has injected at least $1.3 billion into ones like Relay and Pliant.

In Relay’s case, Third Rock teamed up with an affiliate of D.E. Shaw Research, a computational biochemistry institute in New York founded by billionaire hedge fund investor, David E. Shaw. They would not identity the affiliate.

Shaw’s research outfit fits in with Relay’s approach, which the company says will build on recent scientific and technological advances in structural biology, biophysics, computational, chemistry and biology to create an “integrated drug discovery engine.”  The engine gets fueled by a detailed understanding of the dynamic structural changes that protein molecules undergo  within the body. That’s where seeing protein movement in real time comes in.

The expertise of Relay’s founders matches the interdisciplinary nature of the research as well as the team involved in that work. In addition to Shaw, the list includes Matthew Jacobson, professor and pharmaceutical chemistry department chairman at the University of California, San Francisco.

The way Relay tells the story of that evolution, the ability to use static images of the “molecular machines” — or, proteins — that operate within the human body has been around for 60 years. The big breakthrough came in the late 1980s, when researchers started using the snapshots of cell proteins to help them discover and design effective drugs. Relay called it a “turning point in the history of the pharmaceutical industry.”

But as researchers started drilling down to the molecular level, they were able to see how those “machines” moved, functioned and interacted within the cells.

“Relay’s novel approach enables us to observe large-scale and subtle protein motions, identifying new opportunities for the drug design process,” according to Mark Murcko, a self-described “drug hunter” and chief scientific officer at Relay.

“This innovative and integrated approach allows us to pursue novel medicines against a wide array of compelling drug targets that, until now, have been challenging or even inaccessible,” he said in a statement.

The company is the first of to use a platform focused on protein movement, Borisy added in an email. “Our integration of protein motion into the heart of the drug discovery process represents both a philosophical and technological once-in-a-generation paradigm shift.”

Photo Credit: freedigitalphotos user Salvatore Vuono 

 

 

 

Shares0
Shares0