Blacksmith Medicines to Present at the 23rd Annual Needham Healthcare Conference

2024-04-03

SAN DIEGO, April 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Blacksmith Medicines, Inc. (Blacksmith), a leading biopharma dedicated to discovering and developing medicines targeting metalloenzymes, today announced that it will present a company overview and participate in 1x1 meetings at the 23rd Annual Needham Healthcare Conference on Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 11:00 am ET.

"At Blacksmith Medicines, we are developing a pipeline of novel small molecule medicines targeting metalloenzymes of significant unmet need and high pharma interest, but chemistry limitations have hampered previous efforts that we can solve using our technology platform," said Zachary A. Zimmerman, Ph.D., CEO of Blacksmith. "We look forward to presenting our story at the Needham conference and showcasing the vast number of important metalloenzyme targets, the broad therapeutic application of our technology, and our compelling preclinical data."

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 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.