Membrane-free organelles received $150 million in Series C funding and the first pipeline will enter clinical practice next year

The development of new therapies using biomolecular condensate is receiving increasing attention from investors.

Dewpoint Therapeutics announced the completion of a $150 million Series C funding facility led by SoftBank to advance multiple pipeline projects up to IND and further develop Dewpoint's fully integrated, multi-component biology platform and its AI-driven data science platform.

As the first drug discovery company to study phase separation of the relationship between biotechnology, biomolecular condensate and disease. Dewpoint received a $60 million investment after launch in 2019 and signed $305 million and $100 million agreements with Merck and Bayer, respectively, to develop HIV therapies with Merck and collaborate with Bayer on new treatments for cardiovascular and gynecological diseases. Since then, Dewpoint has also partnered with the Whiteheads Institute to study neurodevelopmental disorders Rett syndrome. and completed a $77 million Series B round in September 2021.

Figure | Dewpoint Financing (Source: crunchbase)

Biomolecular agglomerates have not been discovered for a long time, but they have been linked to many cellular processes, from cell signaling to gene expression, and various disease infections.

Condensate is essentially a compartment that cells can form to perform a given function. In the nucleus, for example, cells can use them to bind transcriptional mechanisms together to make new proteins faster and block gene transcription altogether.

They are formed by liquid-liquid phase separation, which is the same physical principle that suspends oil droplets in water. Phase isolation is ubiquitous in cells and is a relatively fiery area of research in recent years. Scientists believe that different components within cells can be separated from each other by phase separation and then perform biological functions. The occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases, tumors, and aging may be due to the imbalance of cell phase separation, and one of the manifestations of the imbalance is that the "biomolecular condensate" that was originally "liquid" became "solid" in the patient's body.

Based on this principle, DewPiont wanted to try to regulate cell phase separation by screening small molecule compounds, restore the liquid form of membrane-free organelles, and thus cure related diseases.

DewPiont has said that a large number of diseases have a way of being regulated by condensate, or they stem from the dysfunction of condensate. The disease areas span cancer, neuroprospic disease, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease. In addition, biomolecular condensates provide a new approach to "non-medicinal" target classes such as transcription factors and phosphatases.

Figure | Dewpoint R&D Pipeline (Source: Company Website)

Dewpoint was co-founded by Anthony Hyman, the lead researcher who first wrote about condensate. The company's two scientific founders are from Max Thompson. Tony S. Planck, Director and Group Leader of the Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) Tony Hyman and Rick Lee, a biology professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the Whitehead Institute, said that he would like to write a book on the subject of a book on the subject. Rick Young.

Its CEO, Ameet Nathwani, said Dewpoint has also built machine learning techniques to match genetic mutations to changes in condensate within cells and to provide a screening platform for new molecules that may interfere with them.

This could also be a point of the company's attraction to SoftBank.

The company will also use this round of funding to expand its research infrastructure to support the company's growth through pipelines including oncology, neuromuscular, cardiorespiratory and virological indications.

In addition to Dewpoint, Clifford Brangwynne, Tony Hyman's postdoctoral student and now a princeton professor, founded Membrane-Free Organelles, a company called Nereid Therapeutics, in November 2020; Third Rock followed Faze Medicines.

Resources:

https://endpts.com/softbank-leads-150m-round-into-dewpoint-as-condensate-biotech-nears-clinic/

https://dewpointx.com/team/

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【Past】

"Illumina" in the field of organ chips 丨 large-scale application丨 Expert interpretation

Interview 丨Jiekai Bio丨 Unlock exosome purification chromatography system

Micro-structure workshop 丨 A round of financing of 250 million yuan丨 proposed to build a production base of 10,000 tons

Interview 丨M20 Genomics 丨 "Refuse to be an imitation follower"