Beacon Discovery Announces Partnership With Escient Pharmaceuticals And Expansion Of Its San Diego Facility
SAN DIEGO, June 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Beacon Discovery today announced a partnership with Escient Pharmaceuticals. Recently launched with $40 million in Series A financing, Escient leveraged Beacon's expertise in orphan GPCR drug discovery to validate key data underpinning their development of therapeutics targeting Mas-Related G-Protein Receptors (Mrgpr). Under the terms of the ongoing collaboration, Beacon will support in vitro and in vivo preclinical discovery efforts for Escient's programs. "The scientists at Beacon have been invaluable to our launch effort," said Alain Baron, President and CEO of Escient. "We look forward to working closely with Beacon to translate our proprietary insights about the functions and biology of Mrgpr receptors into new medicines."
With the addition of the Escient collaboration, Beacon has expanded its strategic collaborations with leading biotech and large pharma partners to a total of seven. The list of collaborators, all focused on GPCR drug discovery across a variety of therapeutic areas, includes industry leading companies like Boehringer Ingelheim, Takeda and Janssen, as well as small and emerging biopharma organizations.
In light of these collaborations, Beacon is expanding its facilities to support both the ongoing strategic partnerships in addition to the development of proprietary internal programs. "We are delighted with the progress we've made in the last two years. In addition to these collaborations with key scientific and industry partners, we are now in a position to accelerate our own internal programs," said Sunny Al-Shamma, President and CEO of Beacon.
About Beacon
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Diego, Beacon Discovery is a world leader in all facets of GPCR-focused drug discovery. Beacon's mission is to efficiently identify and advance molecules targeting GPCRs from concept to clinic. Beacon's internal pipeline focusses on GPCRs for which the native ligand remains unknown. These orphan GPCRs provide unexploited opportunities to develop novel drugs addressing significant unmet medical need. In addition, Beacon collaborates with biopharma partners to leverage internally enabled GPCR targets and small molecule modulators as well as its wealth of GPCR discovery skills and tools.
For more information, please contact: Sunny Al-Shamma, CEO, [email protected]
SOURCE Beacon Discovery
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