Scripps Research Institute spinout BlackThorn Therapeutics will use Yale's Gemini-Dot technology to identify drug targets for neurobehavioural disorders.

BlackThorn Therapeutics, a US-based neurobehavioural therapy spinout from Scripps Research Institute, has licensed research from Yale University’s School of Medicine. The licence covers a technique dubbed Gemini-Dot which maps correlations between neuroimaging and gene expression in the brain to help identify drug targets and clinical populations. BlackThorn is developing therapies for neurobehavioural conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. It has a collaboration agreement in place with Yale’s Division of Neurocognition, Neurocomputation and Neurogenetics. Gemini-Dot builds on research suggesting neurological gene expression follows the hierarchy of the brain’s cerebral cortex. Two professors from Yale University’s School of Medicine, Alan Anticevic and John Murray, developed the approach in conjunction with BlackThorn. BlackThorn’s wider research strategy aims to use data to identify neuromarkers that help stratify patients and design future clinical trials. It currently has two clinical-stage assets targeting behaviours associated with multiple neurobehavioural disorders. BlackThorn previously raised $54m in a two-tranche series A round in 2016 and 2017 featuring GV and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, respective corporate venturing units of diversified conglomerate Alphabet and pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson. The round also included founding investor Arch Venture Partners as well as Biomatics Capital, Mercury Fund, Altitude Life Science Ventures, real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities and an undisclosed crossover fund. Bill Martin, chief scientific officer of BlackThorn Therapeutics, said: “Progress toward novel therapeutics for central nervous system disorders has been hampered by a poor understanding of target patient populations and an inability to ground discovery and development in the underlying pathophysiology, “We believe that mapping specific neural patterns onto specific receptor gene expression profiles represents a significant advance for the field of clinical neuroscience.”

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