Blacksmith Medicines and Zoetis Announce Research Collaboration for Novel Animal Health Antibiotics

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Blacksmith Medicines, Inc. (Blacksmith), a leading biopharma dedicated to discovering and developing medicines targeting metalloenzymes, and Zoetis, the world's leading animal health company, announced today a collaboration to discover and develop novel antibiotics for animal health. 

"According to authorities including the FDA, CDC, WHO, WOAH, and EMA, antibiotic resistance can spread between animals & humans and this is particularly devastating for antibiotics that are the last line of treatment for critical infections in people.  Blacksmith and Zoetis will collaborate to discover and develop novel antibiotics to selectively target bacteria for animal health," said Zachary Zimmerman, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Blacksmith.  "This new collaboration is another example of Blacksmith's creative deal-making with top tier partners that bring expertise to the table which helps de-risk and accelerate scientific discoveries for the development of valuable products."

"As part of our commitment to reduce the dependency on antibiotic classes shared with human health, we are pleased to leverage our veterinary expertise along with our extensive collection of pathogens in this collaboration with Blacksmith," said Dr. Jeff Watts, Research Director, External Innovation at Zoetis. "Through our research, we aim to ultimately provide new options for our customers to treat life-threatening infections in livestock."

About metalloenzymes and the Blacksmith platform

Metalloenzymes utilize a metal ion cofactor in the enzyme active site to perform essential biological functions.  This diverse class of targets has historically been difficult to drug due to small molecule chemistry limitations that have plagued the industry.  The Blacksmith metalloenzyme platform has solved this problem by leveraging the following:

• A large proprietary fragment library of metal-binding pharmacophores (MBPs);
• A comprehensive database containing a full characterization of the metalloenzyme genome including functions, metal cofactors, and associations to disease;
• A first-of-its-kind metallo-CRISPR library of custom single guide RNAs;
• An industry-leading metalloenzyme computational toolkit for docking, modeling and structure-based drug design; and
• A robust and blocking intellectual property estate covering bioinorganic, medicinal, and computational chemistry approaches for metalloenzyme-targeted medicines.

About Zoetis
As the world's leading animal health company, Zoetis is driven by a singular purpose: to nurture our world and humankind by advancing care for animals. After innovating ways to predict, prevent, detect, and treat animal illness for more than 70 years, Zoetis continues to stand by those raising and caring for animals worldwide – from veterinarians and pet owners to livestock farmers and ranchers. The company's leading portfolio and pipeline of medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and technologies make a difference in over 100 countries. A Fortune 500 company, Zoetis generated revenue of $8.1 billion in 2022 with approximately 13,800 employees. For more information, visit www.zoetis.com.

About Blacksmith Medicines 
At Blacksmith Medicines, we are developing medicines targeting metal-dependent enzymes.  Over 30% of known enzymes are metalloenzymes, covering all major enzyme classes: oxidoreductases, transferases, hydrolases, lyases, isomerases, and ligases.  Metal ions, including magnesium, zinc, iron, manganese and copper, are the essential ingredient in these metalloenzymes.  We recognized a large unmet need for new chemical matter and innovative approaches to drug this important class of enzymes.  Our purpose-built platform for metalloenzyme-targeted medicines combines, for the first time in industry, a focused library of metal-binding pharmacophores with proprietary computational modeling approaches to rapidly and rationally design small molecule inhibitors that interact with key metal ions in the enzyme's active site.  Our comprehensive knowledge of the metal environment and key active site interactions enables Blacksmith to rapidly build potent and selective inhibitors in a stepwise and predictable manner.

Blacksmith has executed strategic drug discovery collaborations with Basilea Pharmaceutica International Ltd., Cyteir Therapeutics Inc., Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly), Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., and Zoetis LLC., and has been awarded non-dilutive Federal funding agreements with CARB-X and NIH/NIAID.  Blacksmith investors include Lilly, Evotec A.G., MP Healthcare Partners, MagnaSci Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments.

For further information, please visit the company's website www.BlacksmithMedicines.com and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Amy Conrad
Juniper Point
[email protected]
858-366-3243

SOURCE Blacksmith Medicines