Mars Innovation and Schrödinger open up Bright Angel Therapeutics

Bright Angel Therapeutics, a Canada-based fungal inhibitor developer based on Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and University of Toronto research, was publicly unveiled today to develop drugs that help overcome resistance to existing antifungal medicines.
Multi-university commercialisation firm Mars Innovation and drug discovery company Schrödinger are the company’s founding shareholders, however further details of their agreement were not disclosed.
Founded in 2016, Bright Angel hopes to develop a drug that inhibits the chaperone protein Hsp90, which is thought to be crucial in stimulating biological resistance to antifungal medications.
The drug would complement existing antifungal treatments to overcome rising resistance observed to cause severe morbidity and mortality in patients with diversified fungal infections.
Under the founding agreement, Bright Angel will have to access Schrödinger’s computational drug discovery platforms to design up to three drug leads, while Mars Innovation will provide the company with startup services in addition to financial and legal resources.
Hsp90’s relevance in antifungal resistance was first demonstrated by Susan Lindquist, former director and member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT, and Leah Cowen, associate professor and associate chair at University of Toronto’s molecular genetics department.
Cowen co-founded Bright Angel Therapeutics alongside Luke Whitesell, who discovered the first Hsp90 inhibitor while working in Lindquist’s lab and has since joined Cowen at University of Toronto as a senior research associate.
Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of Mars Innovation, said: “The partnership between Schrödinger and Bright Angel is the fruitful realisation of Mars Innovation’s aim to create important strategic partnerships to better advance our members’ technologies.
“The collaboration with Schrödinger will not only assist in ensuring success for Bright Angel but is also a validation of the stellar science coming from our members.”