Circle Pharma designs and develops bioavailable macrocyclic peptide therapeutics targeting intracellular protein-protein interactions, particularly those involved in cancer. Their computational structure-based design approach combines physics-based conformational modeling and innovative chemistry to create permeable macrocyclic peptide drug candidates.
Funding
$90M raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
TCFounders
Product
Problem
Many intracellular protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are considered "undruggable" by conventional small molecule or biologic therapeutics, particularly those involved in cancer, due to the lack of discrete hydrophobic pockets for small molecules to bind or the inability of biologics to effectively penetrate cell membranes. This limitation hinders the development of effective treatments for various cancers and other severe illnesses.
Solution
Circle Pharma designs and develops orally bioavailable macrocyclic peptide therapeutics that target these challenging intracellular PPIs. Their MXMO™ platform combines computational structure-based design with advanced synthetic macrocycle chemistry to create cell-permeable drug candidates. This platform screens vast virtual and physical chemical libraries, utilizing AI, machine learning, and physics-based simulations to identify and optimize hit compounds. Circle Pharma's lead program is an oral dual-active Cyclin A/B RxL inhibitor (CID-078) that is synthetic lethal in tissue culture to a wide range of cancer types that have elevated E2F hallmark scores and is currently in Phase 1 clinical trials.
Target Audience
The primary target audience includes patients with advanced cancers, particularly those with solid tumors and hematological malignancies, as well as pharmaceutical companies seeking novel therapeutic candidates for partnering and licensing.
Features
- MXMO™ platform for computationally driven, structure-based design of macrocycles
- Ability to design macrocycles with improved properties, including passive cell permeability and oral bioavailability
- Advanced, fully synthetic macrocycle chemistry
- Screening of vast permeability-biased virtual and physical chemical libraries to identify early hit compounds
- AI, machine learning, and rigorous physics-based simulations to assess potential designs and explore structure-activity relationships
- Use of both natural and unnatural chemical building blocks, many of which are custom and proprietary
- Lead program: CID-078, an oral dual-active Cyclin A/B RxL inhibitor in Phase 1 clinical trials
- Research stage programs to develop oral macrocycles that target Cyclin D and Cyclin E