HotSpot Therapeutics added $100 million to its coffers to bring allosteric medicines into the clinic.
The Boston biotech’s pipeline comprises three assets going after sites the body uses to manage proteins. The biotech is named after these so-called “natural hotspots.”
Founded by former Nimbus Apollo leaders, HotSpot thinks it can thwart the selectivity problems and other issues that hamper molecules aimed at the active site. With a portfolio of allosteric inhibitors, HotSpot is going after targets found beyond the active site.
Allosteric hopefuls have caught investors eyes lately. Nimbus Therapeutics, the former home of HotSpot’s CEO and chief scientific officer, picked up $105 million to push its own allosteric inhibitor through multiple phase 2 trials across autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in July. Atavistik Bio accumulated $60 million in August.
HotSpot’s series C will bankroll development of the company’s E3 ligase, kinase C and transcription factor assets across autoimmune disease and various cancers, the biotech said Monday. The cash will also support product expansion.
Funding for the biotech now totals $190 million thanks to SR One (formerly GlaxoSmithKline’s venture shop), Pivotal bioVenture Partners, LSP, B Capital Group and nearly a dozen other institutional investors.
SR One backed the biotech as part of a $65 million series B in May 2020. Six months later, the venture arm of GSK spun out from the British Big Pharma with a $500 million fund to support “elite” biotechs in Europe and the U.S.
In conjunction with the financing, Pivotal’s Ash Khanna, Ph.D., and LSP’s Fouad Azzam, Ph.D., join HotSpot’s board.