Genesis leads Series A extension for China's Nutshell Therapeutics

Hengxu Capital – the private equity investment arm of Chinese state-owned automotive firm SAIC Motor - also took part. Several existing investors re-upped, among them Kunlun Capital, Source Code Capital, Northern Light Venture Capital, and Matrix Partners China.

The company raised a USD 20 million Series A led by Matrix in June last year. This followed a CNY 100m (USD 16m) pre-Series A led by Northern Light and Baidu Ventures in 2020.

Founded in 2013, Nutshell focuses on allosteric drugs, which alter the functional activity of proteins within cells. They can be combined with other treatments to delay the occurrence of drug-resistant mutations in diseases such as tumours. The company estimates that 85% of hard-to-drug targets require the introduction of new technologies such as allosteric technology. 

Global companies in this space include NASDAQ-listed Relay Therapeutics and US-based HotSpot Therapeutics, which closed a USD 100m Series C last year.

Before 2010, most allosteric molecules were discovered by accident through high-throughput screening experiments. Nutshell has developed an allosteric data centre as well as a commercialised computation and experiment platform that can lead to rational discovery methods.

A key feature of the platform is its ability to combine artificial intelligence and biochemistry. It has developed and verified early molecules for a series of target allosteric drugs.

"Amid fierce competition for conventional drug targets, allosteric drugs affect protein function by regulating protein conformation, and they have inherent advantages in selectivity and regulatory mechanism," said Yongtao Lu, chairman of Hengxu, in a statement.

"In the past, allosteric drugs relied on experiments and the development efficiency was low. Nutshell has applied AI algorithms to the development of allosteric drugs, and it has made considerable advances based on its drug discovery platform." 

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Healthcare
• China
• Pharmaceuticals
• SAIC Capital
• Matrix Partners
• Source Code Capital
• Northern Light Venture Capital