Atavistik Bio Raises Additional $40 Million to Advance Precision Allosteric Small Molecule Therapeutics

• Proceeds will support lead precision oncology program into the clinic and advance earlier stage pipeline
• Atavistik Bio is discovering transformative precision allosteric small molecule therapeutics for genetically validated targets by leveraging the body’s natural regulators
• Internally focused on precision oncology and rare diseases; plans to work with partners to maximize the broad therapeutic potential of its novel approach to identify regulators of protein and RNA function

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Atavistik Bio, a biotechnology company discovering the next generation of precision allosteric therapeutics inspired by the body’s natural regulators, today announced that it has raised an additional $40 million to advance its lead precision allosteric small molecule therapeutic in oncology into the clinic and to advance its earlier stage pipeline. The financing included existing investors, including The Column Group, Lux Capital, and Nextech Invest, Ltd. Atavistik Bio has raised $100 million in aggregate since its launch in August 2021.

“We’ve made tremendous progress identifying functional pockets of validated targets and have accelerated the development of precision allosteric therapeutics. Key to our success has been our outstanding team with the know-how and proven track record of discovering and developing transformative medicines,” said Bryan Stuart, Chief Executive Officer at Atavistik Bio. “We’re grateful to our investors for their continued support of our mission. We look forward to using the proceeds from this raise to advance our lead program into the clinic and progress our additional programs and platform.”  

“Allostery continues to gain traction given its potential to modulate intractable targets and to offer better tolerated, more effective therapies for current sub-optimally treated diseases,” said John Josey, Ph.D., Venture Partner at The Column Group and Atavistik Bio’s Board Chair. “In a short period of time, Atavistik Bio has quickly identified novel allosteric binding pockets in a broad range of targets and built a deep discovery pipeline. We believe that Atavistik Bio’s differentiated approach to identify chemical matter against challenging and valuable targets presents a compelling opportunity to bring important new, allosteric medicines to patients across a broad spectrum of disease areas.”

Atavistik Bio seamlessly integrates its proprietary Atavistik Metabolite-Protein Screening (AMPS) technology with its AI-enabled discovery engine to rapidly advance programs from discovery into development. AMPS efficiently uncovers cryptic functional pockets not detectable with other techniques. It accomplishes this by leveraging metabolites, which are natural regulators of protein and RNA function in the body, as ‘bait’ to reveal otherwise hidden allosteric binding pockets on target proteins and functional sites on RNA. Atavistik Bio then applies its state-of-the-art, proprietary AI-enabled drug discovery engine to discover and design small molecules, enabling the rapid advancement of allosteric precision therapeutics.

Employing this integrated approach, Atavistik Bio has successfully and rapidly identified functional binding pockets for the development of small molecule therapeutics across a broad range of target classes, including kinases, enzymes, receptors, transcription factors, as well as protein complexes and RNA, and translated these insights into a robust discovery pipeline. The company’s internal efforts are focused on oncology and rare diseases. It intends to leverage partnerships to extend the reach of its platform to other therapeutic areas, including metabolic and cardiovascular disease, inflammation and immunology disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases.

About Atavistik Bio

Atavistik Bio is focused on unlocking hidden functional pockets to discover transformative allosteric precision therapeutics to address serious unmet patient needs. By integrating our propriety screening technology using the body’s natural regulators, with our powerful AI-enabled drug discovery platform, we are able to efficiently identify novel, biologically relevant allosteric sites for protein or RNA targets, and rapidly advance structural insights into small molecule therapeutics design.

Media Contact:

Liz Melone
Melone Communications, LLC
liz@melonecomm.com