CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Warp Drive Bio, Inc., a drug discovery company developing therapeutics that exploit the molecules and mechanisms of nature, announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued a broad composition-of-matter patent covering a fundamental class of molecules underpinning the company’s proprietary Small Molecule-Assisted Receptor Targeting (SMART™) platform for tackling undruggable intracellular protein disease targets. This new patent, “Methods and Reagents for Analyzing Protein-Protein Interfaces” (U.S. Patent No. 9,989,535), is held exclusively by Warp Drive Bio.
It is estimated that only 20 percent of all human disease-relevant proteins are targetable by small molecules and biologics. The other 80 percent are currently considered refractory to these established therapeutic modalities and, as such, are commonly referred to as “undruggable.” These undruggable human proteins represent a significant and largely untapped reservoir of medically important targets and there exists a great deal of interest in discovering new molecular modalities capable of modulating the function of such targets. Warp Drive Bio is accessing the undruggable target reservoir by deploying SMART™ drugs, which engage an intracellular receptor to create an ‘intracellular biologic,’ which can modulate a therapeutic target.
“Warp Drive Bio is applying a revolutionary approach based on a modality that circumvents the limitations of traditional pharmaceutical approaches to address previously intractable disease targets,” said Laurence Reid, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Warp Drive Bio. “The issuance of this key patent is an important milestone in the development of our growing estate of intellectual property and opens the door to a completely new category of transformative medicines for treating serious health conditions with few or no effective options.”
About Warp Drive Bio
Warp Drive Bio is exploiting the molecules and mechanisms of nature to create transformative medicines. The company operates on the core principle that nature is the world’s most powerful inventor of new drugs, unconstrained by the mechanistic and synthetic limitations of traditional medicinal chemistry. Warp Drive Bio is deploying its proprietary Genome Mining™ and SMART™ (Small Molecule Assisted Receptor Targeting) platforms to discover novel medicines that have the potential to make a significant difference in patients’ lives. For more information, please visit www.warpdrivebio.com.
