¡ª¡ªNutshell Therapeutics

@DAS Capital is pleased to announce that its client, Nutshell Therapeutics(¡°Nutshell¡±), has successfully completed a US$20 million Series A funding round. This round is led by @Matrix Partners China, with participation from @Source Code Capital, Kunlun Capital(@Beijing Kunlun Tech Co Ltd), @Northern Light Venture Capital and @Baidu Ventures. The funds will be used to promote the construction of ALLOSTAR, its self-developed computing-driven allosteric drug discovery platform, and the clinical development of allosteric candidates.

Nutshell’s executive team is composed of top scientists and industry experts from MNC pharmaceuticals in global allosteric and AIDD fields. The company has long been focusing on the R&D process of allosteric drugs and currently owns the largest and most comprehensive allosteric database in the world.

Due to a large amount of Me-too and Fast-follow competitors in the druggable targets sector, those conventional options, about 15% in human proteome, are about to be exhausted. For the 85% of remaining undruggable targets, new technologies such as allosteric and PROTAC will be needed. Overseas companies on the same track include Relay Therapeutics(NASQ: RLAY), with US$3 billion market cap and HotSpot Therapeutics, which received US$65 million in its Series B funding round invested by Atlas Venture and Sofinnova Partners.

Allostery is an inherent property of biomacromolecules in which topographically distinct binding sites within a protein are functionally coupled. Allosteric modulation of proteins enables exquisite control over several biological processes, presenting itself as a unique solution for drug developers to aim at undruggable targets.

ALLOSTAR is a suite of AI-based tools built upon a deep understanding of allosteric mechanisms since 2013, when the enriched allosteric database was established around 2009. The main modules include the use of artificial intelligence and physical calculation methods to discover and analyze hidden allosteric sites, as well as the use of deep learning algorithms to automatically generate new small molecules with allosteric effects at allosteric sites. Currently, this well-established platform implements a complete compound discovery process from identification of the potential allosteric site to hit and lead molecule discovery, in conjunction with a strong medicinal chemistry capability.

Through ALLOSTAR, Nutshell has realized the development of allosteric mechanism lead molecules(from 0 to 1), accelerated the development of drugs for undruggable targets(from 1 to 10), and developed several pipelines including FIC candidates for new targets. Compared with traditional methods, ALLOSTAR significantly shortens the time and costs of the discovery process, and those assets can be quickly commercialized through independent research as well as co-development and license-out.

Before 2010, most reported allosteric molecules were accidentally discovered through high-throughput screening experiments. Few rational discovery methods and little standardized allosteric drug data accumulation resulted in an ambiguous understanding of allosteric sites and their molecular mechanisms. Armed with Nutshell’s database, drug developers are now able to conduct rational design and development with higher success rates.

Thus far, Nutshell Therapeutics has been generating its own pipeline as well as enabling other academic and industry collaborators to develop allosteric drugs. With the ALLOSTAR proprietary platform and its early stage yet fast-evolving allosteric-based pipelines, Nutshell is now becoming an oncology-focused and novel-target-centered company that is pioneering allosteric drug discovery. The company has developed pipelines including allosteric agonist candidates for new targets and will confirm PCC by the end of 2021.

The Series A round investors showed their strong confidence in Nutshell. @Linghao Sun, Investment Director at Matrix Partners China, is deeply impressed by the team’s incredible execution capability during the pandemic. @Yungang Huang, Partner at Source Code Capital, thinks that Nutshell will benefit from the trend of a deeper combination between AI and drug discovery. @Xinxin Chen, Vice President of Kunlun Capital, confirms Nutshell’s potential to succeed based on overseas cases. Lastly, representatives from previous pre-A round investors, including Northern Light Venture Capital and Baidu Ventures, stated that Nutshell’s strong academic background is a key factor that makes them continue to support the team once again.