Ascent Therapeutics Changes Name to Anchor Therapeutics
Cambridge, MA - March 30, 2010 - Ascent Therapeutics announced today that it has adopted a new name - Anchor Therapeutics. Anchor Therapeutics reflects the Company's core technology and its commitment to building solid, dependable value for patients, partners and investors via its proprietary platform technology.
The Company's naturally derived lipopeptides, called pepducins, anchor in the cell membrane, then migrate through it to access and modulate G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) on the inner membrane surface. Like the many types of nautical anchors, pepducins can be customized for various specialized purposes. Anchor's pepducin technology is a transformational approach to highly-specific GPCR targeting and has the potential to dramatically expand the range of addressable GPCR drug targets, including intractable and orphan receptors. GPCRs are critically involved in a wide variety of serious illnesses, including inflammation, cancer, pain, CNS disorders and metabolic and cardiovascular disease.
"Since our founding in 2007, Anchor has successfully built and validated a strong foundation for novel drug development," said Frederick Jones, President and CEO of Anchor. "We have secured a broad intellectual property portfolio, established a license option agreement with Novartis Option Fund and, in 2009, achieved in vivo proof of principle results for two of our pepducin drug candidates. We will continue to advance our internal programs into early trials, with the goal of partnering candidates as we establish clinical proof of concept."
Anchor completed their Series A funding with a syndicate of leading healthcare venture capital funds including Novartis Option Fund, Healthcare Ventures and TVM Capital.
About Pepducin Technology
The pepducin technology platform is being used to develop novel, small lipopeptide allosteric modulators for intractable G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. Pepducins are composed of a short peptide derived from a GPCR intracellular loop joined to a hydrophobic lipid moiety. This structure allows pepducin lipopeptides to anchor in the cell membrane and target the GPCR protein via a unique intracellular allosteric mechanism. The pepducin technology platform represents an entirely new paradigm for modulating GPCR signal transduction from the inside surface of the cell membrane, potentially transforming the scope of GPCR therapeutics to treat a much wider range of serious illnesses. Pepducin technology is licensed exclusively to Anchor Therapeutics in Cambridge, Mass.
About Anchor Therapeutics
Anchor Therapeutics is developing first-in-class pepducin lipopeptide drug candidates, novel molecules that exquisitely target the intracellular domains of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) to allosterically modulate GPCR signaling. For more information, please visit www.anchortx.com.