Nested Therapeutics has emerged from stealth mode with $125 million secured to fund its preclinical pipeline of precision medicines for hard-to-treat cancers. The money includes $90 million from a series A round that Goldman Sachs’ life sciences investment arm led.
The Versant Ventures-founded biotech’s drug discovery platform initially maps mutational clusters onto the structural proteome before identifying druggable pockets and cancer-driving mechanisms. Or, as the company describes it, the platform “reveals cryptic, or newly uncovered, driver mutations and pockets in high-conviction cancer targets to dramatically expand the reach of precision medicine.”
“Our platform uses insights from an array of fields including genomics, structural biology, computational biophysics and artificial intelligence,” said Nested's chief scientific officer and co-founder Klaus Hoeflich, Ph.D., in an Oct. 6 release. “This opens doors to design novel small molecules for previously known targets with well-understood biology and to target what has been previously undruggable.”
The company's pitch was clear enough for Goldman Sachs as well as new investors that participated in the series A such as Foresite Capital, Avidity Partners, Cowen Healthcare Investments and Section 32.
Nested’s lead compound, dubbed NEST-1, is a non-degrading dual molecular glue that targets multiple components of the MAPK pathway. The compound has demonstrated potentially superior efficacy, tolerability and central nervous system activity relative to both single agents and combinations in RAS/MAPK-driven models, according to the biotech. The company expects to nominate a candidate from the NEST-1 program for development by the first quarter of 2023.
Molecular glues are small molecules used to stabilize the interaction between two proteins that don’t typically interact. The modality made headlines this week after Bristol Myers Squibb partnered with SyntheX to develop small-molecule glue degraders.
Nested said its leadership has collectively brought 35 molecules to the clinic, including 10 precision oncology medicines that are now on the market. Based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the team is led by CEO Darrin Miles, who previously served as chief commercial officer at Agios Pharmaceuticals and oversaw the commercialization of Roche’s cancer blockbuster Herceptin during a 14-year stint at Genentech.