The UK biotech attacking notoriously evasive GPCRs has discovered a small molecule that could be used to treat migraine headaches.
Heptares, owned by Sosei and based just outside London, will take home €4.5M ($5M) from Teva for discovering a drug candidate for migraine treatment. The small molecule is an calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) agonist that could relieve patients suffering from episodic and chronic migraine headaches.
Heptares is one of the few companies using structure-based design approaches to pursue GPCRs, which are infamous for their difficulty to target due to quick and variable conformational changes. The English biotech has had some success, as recently recognized by AstraZeneca in an even larger milestone payment.
Heptares does not have much competition in the GPCR space, but one such Confo Therapeutics has a platform that may yet outperform that from its established competitor.
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