- Expected to select development candidate and commence IND-enabling studies next year

DeepCure, a therapeutics company using AI to discover novel therapies for inflammation and immune diseases, announced today the discovery of potent, selective oral small molecule inhibitors of STAT6. These next-generation STAT6 inhibitors demonstrate excellent oral bioavailability, cell permeability, and metabolic stability, and do not target STAT6 for degradation. DeepCure expects to select a development candidate and enter IND-enabling studies next year.

Other STAT6 inhibitors in discovery and development are based on peptidomimetics and utilize charged functional groups to disrupt STAT6 dimerization or degrade the STAT6 protein. Peptidomimetic and highly charged inhibitors often have significant disadvantages, including poor oral bioavailability, limited cell permeability, and metabolic instability.

“Our STAT6 program represents a significant advancement in the discovery of an oral inhibitor for type 2 inflammatory diseases to overcome the limitations seen with marketed injectable therapies,” said Kfir Schreiber, CEO & Founder, DeepCure. “We plan to select a development candidate and advance to IND studies next year to address major unmet needs in the treatment of asthma, atopic dermatitis, COPD and other inflammatory diseases.”

DeepCure’s STAT6 inhibitors, which are in lead optimization, have demonstrated oral bioavailability, cellular activity and in-vivo efficacy, and are highly selective for STAT6 over other STAT proteins. These novel inhibitors have also been shown to modulate the IL-4/IL-13 pathway and decrease type 2 inflammation in vivo, without degrading the STAT6 protein.

DeepCure used its proprietary technologies, PocketExpander™ and MolGEN™, which integrate advanced AI and physics-based models, to design several novel series of molecules that do not have a peptidomimetic backbone or charged moieties in their structure. These technologies are now being applied to other key targets in inflammatory and immune pathways with enormous therapeutic potential but have been intractable to small molecule discovery.

About DeepCure

DeepCure was founded by researchers at MIT to accelerate breakthrough therapies using artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-enabling technologies to innovate small molecule discovery. The company is based in Boston, MA, and its engineers, chemists, and biologists collaborate on hard problems to find solutions that will have an enormous impact on patient health. For more information, visit www.deepcure.ai.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241219672519/en/