Blacksmith Medicines and Forge Therapeutics are joining forces to revolutionize the biopharma industry with a groundbreaking merger. Combining their chemistry platforms, the companies are dedicated to discovering and developing medicines targeting metalloenzymes, with an initial focus on oncology and infection. By joining forces, they are paving the way for a new era in biopharma, one that could lead to life-saving treatments for millions of people.
We are thrilled to announce the merger of Blacksmith and Forge, a game-changing move for both companies. Our newly created Blacksmith is poised to unleash vast potential, as we can now leverage our metalloenzyme platform to launch innovative internal and partnered programs – all while creating greater value for shareholders through the discovery of groundbreaking, market-leading medicines. Our strategy is simple: we’re targeting metalloenzymes of significant unmet need and high pharma interest, coupled with validated biology that has historically proven challenging to drug – but which we are uniquely positioned to tackle with our game-changing platform.
Blacksmith is revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry with its groundbreaking platform, which has been validated through multiple successful partnerships with Roche, Eli Lilly, and Basilea that could earn up to $800M in milestone payments and royalties. To boost the platform even further, Blacksmith has been awarded up to $25.3M of non-dilutive federal funding to finance its infectious disease programs until Phase 1 is complete. Investors such as Evotec A.G., MagnaSci Ventures, MP Healthcare Partners, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Eli Lilly are excited about the potential of Blacksmith’s precision oncology programs, which focus on novel synthetic lethality targets involved in the DNA Damage Response.
About metalloenzymes and the Blacksmith platform
Metalloenzymes are an essential part of biology, as they rely on metal ion cofactors in their active sites to perform vital functions. Unfortunately, conventional small molecule chemistry has been unable to effectively target these molecules – until now. Enter the Blacksmith metalloenzyme platform, which has revolutionized the industry by offering a unique and effective solution to this long-standing problem.
- Metal-binding pharmacophores are at the heart of our proprietary fragment library, giving researchers an unprecedented ability to design effective metalloenzyme-targeted medicines.
- Our comprehensive database provides a full characterization of the metalloenzyme genome, including functions, metal cofactors, and associations to disease.
- We are also proud to present the first-of-its-kind metallo-CRISPR library of custom single guide RNAs, as well as our industry-leading metalloenzyme computational toolkit for docking, modeling, and structure-based drug design.
- To ensure the success of our work, we have also developed a robust and blocking intellectual property estate covering bioinorganic, medicinal, and computational chemistry approaches for metalloenzyme-targeted medicines.
About Blacksmith Medicines
At Blacksmith Medicines, we are revolutionizing medicine by developing treatments targeting metal-dependent enzymes. Over 30% of all known enzymes are metalloenzymes and cover all major enzyme classes. Our purpose-built platform combines, for the first time in the industry, a library of metal-binding pharmacophores and computer modeling approaches to rapidly and predictably design small molecule inhibitors that interact with key metal ions in the enzyme’s active site. With our comprehensive knowledge of the metal environment and active site interactions, we are able to build potent and selective inhibitors in a stepwise and predictable manner. Our approach is a powerful tool to combat the unmet need for new chemical matter and innovative approaches to drug this important class of enzymes.