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Septerna Emerges With $100m To Target Undruggable GPCRs

Start-Up Pairs Structural Insights With Computational Tools

 
• By Mandy Jackson

Septerna’s platform purifies G-coupled protein receptors (GPCR) to identify new drug targeting sites and then uses technologies such as machine learning to find novel compounds against hard-to-reach GPCRs.

Start up concept vector illustration
The start-up is screening GPCR-targeting compounds at scale • Source: Alamy

A third of all approved medicines – more than 700 drugs – target G-protein coupled receptors, but many GPCRs remain unreachable with traditional pharmaceutical approaches. To drug what was once deemed undruggable, Septerna Inc. came out of stealth mode on 27 January with $100m in series A venture capital and a new technology platform to get around the GPCR-targeting problems of the past while using modern tools to discover novel compounds.

Septerna co-founders Jeffrey Finer and Robert Lefkowitz spoke with Scrip about the serendipitous union of CEO Finer’s ideas about GPCR...

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